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NOT THAT IT 
MATTERS 



by] 
A. A. MILNE 




NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON 6- COMPANY 

68i FIFTH AVENUE 



Copyright, 1920, 
By E. p. DUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



' v' 



Printed in the United Stateaof America 



©CI.A570967 
A^G -6 !S2a 



TO 

K. J. M. 

IN MEMORY OF THE NINETIES 



Of these little essays, one appeared originally in 
The Star, eight in The Outlook, and the remain- 
der in The Sphere. They were written during 
two periods; some within the last year, others as 
long ago as 1910-1912; but they are not printed 
here in chronological order, and the reader must 
guess for himself (if that sort of thing amuses 
him) which are the earlier articles and which the 
later. Not, of course, that it matters. 

A. A. M. 



VI 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Pleasure of Writing i 

Acacia Road 7 

My Library 12 

The Chase 18 

Superstition 23 

The Charm of Golf 28 

Goldfish 33 

Saturday to Monday 38 

The Pond 43 

A Seventeenth-Century Story 48 

Our Learned Friends 53 

A Word for Autumn 60 

A Christmas Number 65 

No Flowers by Request 70 

The Unfairness of Things 74 

Daffodils 79 

A Household Book 84 

Lunch 89 

The Friend of Man 94 

The Diary Habit 99 

Midsummer Day 104 

vii 



viii Contents 

PAGE 

At the Bookstall no 

"Who's Who" 115 

A Day at Lord's 121 

By the Sea 126 

Golden Fruit 131 

Signs of Character 136 

Intellectual Snobbery 141 

A Question of Form 147 

A Slice of Fiction 152 

The Label 157 

The Profession 162 

-^Smoking as a Fine Art 167 

The Path to Glory 172 

A Problem in Ethics 177 

The Happiest Half-Hours of Life .... 182 

Natural Science 187 

On Going Dry 192 

A Misjudged Game 198 

A Doubtful Character 204 

Thoughts on Thermometers 209 

For a Wet Afternoon 214 

Declined with Thanks 219 

^On Going into a House 225 

The Ideal Author 229 



NOT THAT IT MATTERS 



The Pleasure of Writing. 

SOMETIMES when the printer Is waiting for 
an article which really should have been sent 
to him the day before, I sit at my desk and won- 
der If there Is any possible subject In the whole 
world upon which I can possibly find anything to 
say. On one such occasion I left It to Fate, which 
decided, by means of a dictionary opened at 
random, that I should deliver myself of a few 
thoughts about goldfish. (You will find this ar- 
ticle later on in the book.) But to-4ay I do not 
need to bother about a subject. To-day I am 
without a care. Nothing less has happened than 
that I have a new nib In my pen. 

In the ordinary way, when Shakespeare writes 
a tragedy, or Mr. Blank gives you one of his 
charming little essays, a certain amount of thought 
goes on before pen is put to paper. One cannot 
write "Scene I. An Open Place. Thunder and 
Lightning. Enter Three Witches," or "As I look 
up from my window, the nodding daffodils beckon 
to me to take the morning," one cannot give of 
one's best in this way on the spur of the moment. 



2 Not That It Matters 

At least, others cannot. But when I have a new 
nib in my pen, then I can go straight from my 
breakfast to the blotting-paper, and a new sheet 
of foolscap fills itself magically with a stream of 
blue-black words. When poets and idiots talk of 
the pleasure of writing, they mean the pleasure of 
giving a piece of their minds to the public; with 
an old nib a tedious business. They do not 
mean (as I do) the pleasure of the artist in seeing 
beautifully shaped "k's" and sinuous *'s's'' grow 
beneath his steel. Anybody else writing this 
article might wonder *Will my readers like it?" 
I only tell myself "How the compositors will 
love it!" 

But perhaps they will not love it. Maybe I 
am a little above their heads. I remember on one 
First of January receiving an anonymous postcard 
wishing me a happy New Year, and suggesting 
that I should give the compositors a happy New 
Year also by writing more generously. In those 
days I got a thousand words upon one sheet 8 in. 
by 5 in. I adopted the suggestion, but it was a 
wrench; as it would be for a painter of miniatures 
forced to spend the rest of his life painting the 
Town Council of Boffington in the manner of 
Herkomer. My canvases are bigger now, but they 
are still impressionistic. "Pretty, but what is it?" 



The Pleasure of Writing 3 

remains the obvious comment; one steps back a 
pace and saws the air with the hand; "You see 
it better from here, my love," one says to one's 
wife. But if there be one compositor not carried 
away by the mad rush of life, who in a leisurely 
hour (the luncheon one, for instance) looks at 
the beautiful words with the eye of an artist, not 
of a wage-earner, he, I think, will be satisfieH; 
he will be as glad as I am of my new nib. Does it 
matter, then, what you who see only the printed 
word think of it? 

A woman, who had studied what she called the 
science of calligraphy, once offered to tell my char- 
acter from my handwriting. I prepared a special 
sample for her; it was full of sentences like "To 
be good is to be happy," "Faith is the lode-star of 
life," "We should always be kind to animals," 
and so on. I wanted her to do her best. She 
gave the morning to it, and told me at lunch that I 
was "synthetic." Probably you think that the 
compositor has failed me here and printed "syn- 
thetic" when I wrote "sympathetic." In just this 
way I misunderstood my calligraphist at first, and 
I looked as sympathetic as I could. However, 
she repeated "synthetic," so that there could be 
no mistake. I begged her to tell me more, for I 
had thought that every letter would reveal a se- 



4 Not That It Matters 

cret, but all she would add was "and not analytic." 
I went about for the rest of the day saying proudly 
to myself "I am synthetic! I am synthetic! I 
am synthetic!" and then I would add regretfully, 
"Alas, I am not analytic!" I had no idea what 
it meant. 

And how do you think she had deduced my syn- 
thetlcness? Simply from the fact that, to save 
time, I join some of my words together. That 
isn't being synthetic, it Is being in a hurry What 
she should have said was, "You are a busy man; 
your life is one constant whirl; and probably you 
are of excellent moral character and kind to ani- 
mals." Then one would feel that one did not 
write in vain. 

My pen is getting tired; it has lost its first fair 
youth. However, I can still go on. I was at 
school with a boy whose uncle made nibs. If you 
detect any traces of erudition in this article, of 
which any decent man might be expected to be 
innocent, I owe it to that boy. He once told me 
how many nibs his uncle made in a year; luckily 
I have forgotten. Thousands, probably. Every 
term that boy came back with a hundred of them ; 
one expected him to be very busy. After all, if 
you haven't the brains or the inclination to work, 



The Pleasure of Writing 5 

it is something to have the nibs. These nibs, how- 
ever, were put to better uses. There is a game 
you can play with them ; you flick your nib against 
the other boy's nib, and if a lucky shot puts the 
head of yours under his, then a sharp tap cap- 
sizes him, and you have a hundred and one in your 
collection. There is a good deal of strategy in 
the game (whose finer points I have now for- 
gotten), and I have no doubt that they play It at 
the Admiralty In the off season. Another game 
was to put a clean nib in your pen, place It lightly 
against the cheek of a boy whose head was turned 
away from you, and then call him suddenly. As 
Kipling says, we are the only really humorous, 
race. The boy's uncle died a year or two later 
and left about £80,000, but none of it to his 
nephew. Of course, he had had the nibs every 
term. One musn't forget that. 

The nib I write this with is called the "Cana- 
dian Quill"; made, I suppose, from some steel 
goose which flourishes across the seas, and which 
Canadian housewives have to explain to their hus- 
bands every Michaelmas. Well, it has seen me 
to the end of what I wanted to say — if indeed I 
wanted to say anything. For it was enough for 
me this morning just to write; with spring com- 



6 Not That It Matters 

ing in through the open windows and my good 
Canadian quill in my hand, I could have copied 
out a directory. That is the real pleasure of 
writing. 



Acacia Road, 

OF course there are disadvantages of suburban 
life. In the fourth act of the play there 
may be a moment when the fate of the erring wife 
hangs in the balance, and utterly regardless of 
this the last train starts from Victoria at 11.15. 
It must be annoying to have to leave her at such 
a crisis; it must be annoying too to have to pre- 
face the curtailed pleasures of the play with a 
meat tea and a hasty dressing in the afternoon. 
But, after all, one cannot judge life from its fa- 
cilities for playgoing. It would be absurd to con- 
demn the suburbs because of the 11. 15. 

There is a road eight miles from London up 
which I have walked sometimes on my way to 
golf. I think it is called Acacia Road ; some pretty 
name like that. It may rain in iVcacia Road, but 
never when I am there. The sun shines on Labur- 
num Lodge with its pink may tree, on the Cedars 
with its two clean limes, it casts its shadow on the 
ivy of Holly House, and upon the whole road 
there rests a pleasant afternoon peace. I cannot 
walk along Acacia Road without feeling that life 

7 



8 Not That It Matters 

could be very happy in it — when the sun is shin- 
ing. It must be jolly, for instance, to live in 
Laburnum Lodge with its pink may tree. Some- 
times I fancy that a suburban home is the true 
home after all. 

When I pass Laburnum Lodge I think of Him 
saying good-bye to Her at the gate, as he takes 
the air each morning on his way to the station. 
What if the train is crowded? He has his news- 
paper. That will see him safely to the City. And 
then how interesting will be everything which 
happens to him there, since he has Her to tell it 
to when he comes home. The most ordinary 
street accident becomes exciting if a story has to 
be made of it. Happy the man who can say of 
each little incident, *'I must remember to tell Her 
when I get home." And it is only in the suburbs 
that one "gets home." One does not "get home" 
to Grosvenor Square ; one is simply "in" or "out." 

But the master of Laburnum Lodge may have 
something better to tell his wife than the incident 
of the runaway horse; he may have heard a new 
funny story at lunch. The joke may have been 
all over the City, but it is unlikely that his wife 
in the suburbs will have heard it. Put it on the 
credit side of marriage that you can treasure up 
your jokes for some one else. And perhaps She 



Acacia Road 9 

has something for him too ; some backward plants 
It may be, has burst suddenly Into flower; at least 
he will walk more eagerly up Acacia Road for 
wondering. So It will be a happy meeting under 
the pink may tree of Laburnum Lodge when these 
two are restored safely to each other after the 
excitements of the day. Possibly they will even 
do a little gardening together In the still glowing 
evening. 

If life has anything more to offer than this It 
will be found at Holly House, where there are 
babies. Babies give an added excitement to the 
master's homecoming, for almost anything may 
have happened to them while he has been away. 
Dorothy perhaps has cut a new tooth and Anne 
may have said something really clever about the 
baker's man. In the morning, too, Anne will 
walk with him to the end of the road; It Is per- 
fectly safe, for in Acacia Road nothing untoward 
could occur. Even the dogs are quiet and friendly. 
I like to think of the master of Holly House say- 
ing good-bye to Anne at the end of the road and 
knowing that she will be alive when he comes back 
in the evening. That ought to make the day's 
work go quickly. 

But It Is the Cedars which gives us the secret 
of the happiness of the suburbs. The Cedars you 



10 Not That It Matters 

observe is a grander house altogether; there is a 
tennis lawn at the back. And there are grown- 
up sons and daughters at the -Cedars. In such 
houses in Acacia Road the delightful business of 
love-making is in full swing. Marriages are not 
^'arranged" in the suburbs; they grow naturally 
out of the pleasant intercouse between the Cedars, 
the Elms, and Rose Bank. I see Tom walking 
over to the Elms, racket in hand, to play tennis 
with Miss Muriel. He is hoping for an invitation 
to remain to supper, and indeed I think he will 
get it. Anyhow he is going to ask Miss Muriel 
to come across to lunch to-morrow; his mother 
has so much to talk to her about. But it will be 
Tom who will do most of the talking. 

I am sure that the marriages made In Acacia 
Road are happy. That is why I have no fears 
for Holly House and Laburnum Lodge. Of 
course they didn't make love in this Acacia Road; 
they are come from the Acacia Road of some 
other suburb, wisely deciding that they will be 
better away from their people. But they met each 
other in the same way as Tom and Muriel are 
meeting; He has seen Her in Her own home, in 
His home, at the tennis club, surrounded by the 
young bounders (confound them!) of Turret 
Court and the Wilderness ; She has heard of him 



Acacia Road ii 

falling off his bicycle or quarrelling with his 
father. Bless you, they know all about each other; 
they are going to be happy enough together. 

And now I think of it, why of course there is 
a local theatre where they can do their piaygoing, 
if they are as keen on it as that. For ten shillings 
they can spread from the stage box an air of lux- 
ury and refinement over the house; and they can 
nod in an easy manner across the stalls to the 
Cedars in the opposite box — in the deep recesses; 
of which Tom and Muriel, you may be sure, are 
holding hands. 



My Library. 

WHEN I moved into a new house a few 
weeks ago, my books, as was natural, 
moved with me. Strong, perspiring men shovelled 
them into packing-cases, and staggered with them 
to the van, cursing Caxton as they v\^ent. On ar- 
rival at this end, they staggered with them into 
the room selected for my library, heaved off the 
lids of the cases, and awaited orders. The im- 
mediate need was for an emptier room. Together 
we hurried the books into the new white shelves 
which awaited them, the order in which they 
stood being of no matter so long as they were off 
the floor. Armful after armful was hastily 
stacked, the only pause being when (in the curious 
way in which these things happen) my own name 
suddenly caught the eye of the foreman. "Did 
you write this one, sir?" he asked. I admitted it. 
*'H'm," he said non-committally. He glanced 
along the names of every armful after that, and 
appeared a little surprised at the number of books 
which I hadn*t written. An easy-going profession, 
evidently. 

12.. 



My Library 13 

So we got the books up at last, and there they 
are still. I told myself that when a wet afternoon 
came along I would arrange them properly. 
When the wet afternoon came, I told myself that 
I would arrange them one of these fine mornings. 
As they are now, I have to look along every shelf 
in the search for the book which I want. To come 
to Keats is no guarantee that we are on the road 
to Shelley. Shelley, if he did not drop out on the 
way, is probably next to How to be a Golfer 
though Middle-aged. 

Having written as far as this, I had to get up 
and see where Shelley really was. It is worse than 
I thought. He is between Geometrical Optics and 
Studies in New Zealand Scenery. Ella Wheeler 
Wilcox, whom I find myself to be entertaining una- 
wares, sits beside Anarchy or Order, which was 
apparently *'sent in the hope that you will become 
a member of the Duty and Discipline Movement" 
— a vain hope, it would seem, for I have not yet 
paid my subscription. What I Found Out, by an 
English Governess, shares a corner with The 
Recreations of a Country Parson; they are fol- 
lowed by Villette and Baedeker's Switzerland. 
Something will have to be done about it. 

But I am wondering what is to be done. If I 
gave you the impression that my books were pre- 



14 Not That It Matters 

cisely arranged In their old shelves, I misled you. 
They were arranged in the order known as ''all 
anyhow." Possibly they were a little less "any- 
how" than they are now, in that the volumes of 
any particular work were at least together, but 
that is all that can be claimed for them. For 
years I put off the business of tidying them up, 
just as I am putting it off now. It is not laziness; 
it is simply that I don't know how to begin. 

Let us suppose that we decide to have all the 
poetry together. It sounds reasonable. But then 
Byron is eleven inches high (my tallest poet), and 
Beattie (my shortest) is just over four inches. 
How foolish they will look standing side by side. 
Perhaps you don't know Beattie, but I assure you 
that he was a poet. He wrote those majestic 
lines : — 

"The shepherd-swain of whom I mention made 
On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock; 
The sickle, scythe or plough he never swayed— 
An honest heart was almost all his stock." 

Of course, one would hardly expect a shepherd to 
sway a plough in the ordinary way, but Beattie 
was quite right to remind us that Edwin didn't 
either. Edwin was the name of the shepherd- 
swain. "And yet poor Edwin was no vulgar boy," 
we are told a little further on in a line that should 



My Library 15 

live. Well, having satisfied you that Beattle was 
really a poet, I can now return to my argument 
that an eleven-inch Byron cannot stand next to a 
four-inch Beattle, and be followed by an eight- 
inch Cowper, without making the shelf look silly. 
Yet how can I discard Beattie — Beattie who 
wrote : — 

"And now the downy cheek and deepened voice 
Gave dignity to Edwin's blooming prime." 

You see the difficulty. If you arrange your 
books according to their contents you are sure to 
get an untidy shelf. If you arrange your books 
according to their size and colour you get an effec- 
tive wall, but the poetically inclined visitor may 
lose sight of Beattle altogether. Before, then, 
we decide what to do about it, we must ask our- 
selves that very awkward question, "Why do we 
have books on our shelves at all?'* It is a most 
embarrassing question to answer. 

Of course, you think that the proper answer 
(in your own case) is an Indignant protest that 
you bought them in order to read them, and that 
you put them on your shelves in order that you 
could refer to them when necessary. A little re- 
flection will show you what a stupid answer that 
is. If you only want to read them, why are some 



i6 Not That It Matters 

of them bound In morocco and half-calf and other 
expensive coverings? Why did you buy a first 
edition when a hundredth edition was so much 
cheaper? Why have you got half a dozen copies 
of The Ruhdiydtf What is the particular value 
of this other book that you treasure it so care- 
fully? Why, the fact that its pages are uncut. If 
you cut the pages and read it, the value 
would go. 

So, then, your library is not just for reference. 
You know as well as I do that it furnishes your 
room; that it furnishes it more effectively than 
does paint or mahogany or china. Of course. It 
Is nice to have the books there, so that one can 
refer to them when one wishes. One may be 
writing an article on sea-bathing, for Instance, 
and have come to the sentence which begins : "In 
the well-remembered words of Coleridge, perhaps 
almost too familiar to be quoted" — and then one 
may have to look them up. On these occasions a 
library is not only ornamental but useful. But do 
not let us be ashamed that we find it ornamental. 

Indeed, t'le more I survey it, the more I feel 
that my library is sufficiently ornamental as it 
stands. Any reassembling of the books might 
spoil the colour-scheme. Baedeker^ s Smitzerland 
and Villette are both in red, a colour which Is 



My Library 17 

neatly caught up again, after an interlude In blue, 
by a volume of Browning and Jevons' Elementary 
Logic, We had a woman here only yesterday 
who said, "How pretty your books look," and I 
am Inclined to think that that Is good enough. 
There is a careless rapture about them which I 
should lose if I started to arrange them 
methodically. 

But perhaps I might risk this to the extent of 
getting all their heads the same way up. Yes, 
on one of these fine days (or wet nights) I shall 
take my library seriously in hand. There are 
still one or two books which are the wrong way 
round. I shall put them the right way round. 



The Chase. 

THE fact, as revealed in a recent lawsuit, 
that there is a gentleman in this country 
who spends £10,000 a year upon his butterfly 
collection would have disturbed me more in the 
early nineties than it does to-day. I can bear 
it calmly now, but twenty-five years ago the 
knowledge would have spoilt my pride in my own 
collection, upon which I was already spending 
the best part of threepence a week pocket-money. 
Perhaps, though, I should have consoled myself 
with the thought that I was the truer enthusiast 
of the two; for when my rival hears of a rare 
butterfly in Brazil, he sends a man out to Brazil 
to capture it, whereas I, when I heard that there 
was a Clouded Yellow in the garden, took good 
care that nobody but myself encompassed its 
death. Our aims also were different. I purposely 
left Brazil out of it. 

Whether butterfly-hunting is good or bad for 
the character I cannot undertake to decide. No 
doubt it can be justified as clearly as fox-hunting. 
If the fox eats chickens, the butterfly's child eats 

18 



The Chase 19 

vegetables; if fox-hunting improves the breed of 
horses, butterfly-hunting improves the health of 
boys. But at least, we never told ourselves that 
butterflies liked being pursued, as (I understand) 
foxes like being hunted. We were moderately 
honest about it. And we comforted ourselves in 
the end with the assurance of many eminent natu- 
ralists that "insects don't feel pain." 

I have often wondered how naturalists dare to 
speak with such authority. Do they never have 
dreams at night of an after-life in some other 
world, wherein they are pursued by giant insects 
eager to increase their "naturalist collection" — 
insects who assure each other carelessly that 
"naturalists don't feel pain?" Perhaps they do 
so dream. But we, at any rate, slept well, for we 
had never dogmatized about a butterfly's feel- 
ings. We only quoted the wise men. 

But if there might be doubt about the sensitive- 
ness of a butterfly, there could be no doubt about 
his distinguishing marks. It was amazing to us 
how many grown-up and (presumably) educated 
men and women did not know that a butterfly had 
knobs on the end of his antenna^ and that the 
moth had none. Where had they been all these 
years to be so ignorant? Well-meaning but mis- 
guided aunts, with mysterious promises of a new 



20 Not That It Matters 

butterfly for our collection, would produce some 
common Yellow Underwing from an envelope, 
innocent (for which they may be forgiven) that 
only a personal capture had any value to us, but 
unforgivably ignorant that a Yellow Underwing 
was a moth. We did not collect moths; there 
were too many of them. And moths are noc- 
turnal creatures. A hunter whose bedtime de- 
pends upon the whim of another is handicapped 
for the night-chase. 

But butterflies come out when the sun comes 
out, which is just when little boys should be 
out; and there are not too many butterflies in 
England. I knew them all by name once, and 
could have recognized any that I saw — ^yes, even 
Hampstead's Albion Eye (or was It Albion's 
Hampstead Eye?), of which only one specimen 
had ever been caught in this country; presumably 
by Hampstead — or Albion. In irv day-dreams 
the second specimen was caught by me. Yet he 
was an insignificant-looking fellow, and perhaps I 
should have been better pleased with a Camber- 
well Beauty, a Purple Emperor, or a Swallowtail. 
Unhappily the Purple Emperor (so the book told 
us) haunted the tops of trees, which was to take 
an unfair advantage of a boy small for his age, 
and the Swallowtail haunted Norfolk, which was 



The Chase 21 

equally inconsiderate of a family which kept holi- 
day in the south. The Camberwell Beauty 
sounded more hopeful, but I suppose the trams 
disheartened him. I doubt If he ever haunted 
Camberwell in my time. 

With threepence a week one has to be care- 
ful. It was necessary to buy killing-boxes and 
setting-boards, but butterfly-nets could be made at 
home. A stick, a piece of copper wire, and some 
muslin were all that were necessary. One liked 
the muslin to be green, for there was a feeling 
that this deceived the butterfly in some way; he 
thought that Birnam Wood was merely coming 
to Dunsinane when he saw It approaching, and 
that the queer-looking thing behind was some local 
efflorescence. So he resumed his dalhance with 
the herbaceous border, and was never more sur- 
prised in his life than when it turned out to be a 
boy and a butterfly-net. Green muslin, then, but 
a plain piece of cane for the stick. None of your 
collapsible fishing-rods — ''suitable for a Purple 
Emperor." Leave those to the millionaire's sons. 

It comes back to me now that I am doing this 
afternoon what I did more than twenty-five years 
ago ; I am writing an article upon the way to make 
a butterfly-net. For my first contribution to the 
press was upon this subject. I sent It to the editor 



22 Not That It Matters 

of some boys' paper, and his failure to print it 
puzzled me a good deal, since every word in it 
(I was sure) was correctly spelt. Of course, I 
see now that you want more in an article than 
that. But besides being puzzled I was extremely 
disappointed, for I wanted badly the money that 
it should have brought in. I wanted it in order 
to buy a butterfly-net; the stick and the copper 
wire and the green muslin being (in my hands, at 
any rate) more suited to an article. 



Superstition. 

1HAVE just read a serious column on the pros- 
pects for next year. This article consisted 
of contributions from experts in the various 
branches of industry (including one from a mete- 
orological expert who, I need hardly tell you, 
forecasted a wet summer) and ended with a gen- 
eral summing up of the year by Old Moore or 
one of the minor prophets. Old Moore, I am 
sorry to say, left me cold. 

I should like to believe in astrology, but I 
cannot. I should like to beheve that the heavenly 
bodies sort themselves into certain positions in 
order that Zadkiel may be kept in touch with 
the future; the idea of a star whizzing a million 
miles out of its path by way of indicating a '*sen- 
sational divorce case in high life" is extraordinar- 
ily massive. But, candidly, I do not believe the 
stars bother. What the stars are for, what they 
are like when you get there, I do not know; but 
a starry night would not be so beautiful if it were 
simply meant as a warning to some unpleasant 
financier that Kaffirs were going up. The ordi- 

23 



24 Not That It Matters 

nary man looks at the heavens and thinks what an 
Insignificant atom he is beneath them; the believer 
in astrology looks up and realizes afresh his over- 
whelming importance. Perhaps, after all, I am 
glad I do not believe. 

Life must be a very tricky thing for the super- 
stitious. At dinner a night or two ago I happened 
to say that I had never been in danger of drown- 
ing. I am not sure now that it was true, but I 
still think it was harmless. However, before I 
had time to elaborate my theme (whatever it was) 
I was peremptorily ordered to touch wood. I 
protested that both my feet were on the polished 
oak and both my elbows on the polished mahogany 
(one always knew that some good instinct Inspired 
the pleasant habit of elbows on the table) and that 
anyhow I did not see the need. However, be- 
cause one must not argue at dinner I tapped the 
table two or three times . . . and now I suppose 
I am immune. At the same time I should like to 
know exactly whom I have appeased. 

For this must be the idea of the wood-touching 
superstition, that a malignant spirit dogs one's 
conversational footsteps, listening eagerly for the 
complacent word. "I have never had the 
mumps," you say airily. "Ha, ha!'' says the 
spirit, **haven't you? Just you wait till next 



Superstition 25 

Tuesday, my boy." Unconsciously we are credit- 
ing Fate with our own human weaknesses. If a 
man standing on the edge of a pond said aloud, 
"I have never fallen into a pond in my life," and 
we happened to be just behind him, the temptation 
to push him in would be irresistible. Irresistible, 
that is by us; but it is charitable to assume that 
Providence can control itself by now. 

Of course, nobody really thinks that our good 
or evil spirits have any particular feeling about 
wood, that they like it stroked; nobody, I sup- 
pose, not even the most superstitious, really thinks 
that Fate is especially touchy in the matter of 
salt and ladders. Equally, of course, many peo- 
ple who throw spilt salt over their left shoulders 
are not superstitious in the least, and are only 
concerned to display that readiness in the face of 
any social emergency which is said to be the mark 
of good manners. But there are certainly many 
who feel that it is the part of a wise man to pro- 
pitiate the unknown, to bend before the forces 
which work for harm; and they pay tribute to 
Fate by means of these little customs in the hope 
that they will secure in return an immunity from 
evil. The tribute is nominal, but it is an acknowl- 
edgment all the same. 

A proper sense of proportion leaves no room 



26 Not That It Matters 

for superstition. A man says, "I have never been 
in a shipwreck," and becoming nervous touches 
wood. Why is he nervous? He has this para- 
graph before his eyes: "Among the deceased 

was Mr. . By a remarkable coincidence this 

gentleman had been saying only a few days before 
that he had never been In a shipwreck. Little did 
he think that his next voyage would falsify his 
words so tragically.'* It occurs to him that he has 
read paragraphs like that again and again. Per- 
haps he has. Certainly he has never read a para- 
graph like this: "Among the deceased was Mr. 
. By a remarkable coincidence this gentle- 
man had never made the remark that he had not 
yet been in a shipwreck." Yet that paragraph 
could have been written truthfully thousands of 
times. A sense of proportion would tell you that, 
if only one side of a case is ever recorded, that 
side acquires an undue importance. 

The truth is that Fate does not go out of its 
way to be dramatic. If you or I had the power 
of life and death in our hands, we should no 
doubt arrange some remarkably bright and telling 
effects. A man who spilt the salt callously would 
be drowned next week in the Dead Sea, and a 
couple who married in May would expire simul- 
taneously in the May following. But Fate can- 



Superstition 27 

not worry to think out all the clever things that 
we should think out. It goes about its business 
solidly and unromantically, and by the ordinary 
laws of chance it achieves every now and then 
something startling and romantic. Superstition 
thrives on the fact that only the accidental dramas 
are reported. 

But there are charms to secure happiness as 
well as charms to avert evil. In these I am a firm 
believer. I do not mean that I believe that a 
horseshoe hung up in the house will bring me 
good luck; I mean that if anybody does believe 
this, then the hanging up of his horseshoe will 
probably bring him good luck. For if you be- 
lieve that you are going to be lucky, you go about 
your business with a smile, you take disaster with 
a smile, you start afresh with a smile. And to 
do that is to be in the way of happiness. 



The Charm of Golf. 

WHEN he reads of the notable doings of 
famous golfers, the eighteen-handicap 
man has no envy in his heart. For by this time 
he has discovered the great secret of golf. Be- 
fore he began to play he wondered wherein lay 
the fascination of it; now he knows. Golf is so 
popular simply because it is the best game in 
the world at which to be bad. 

Consider what it is to be bad at cricket. You 
have bought a new bat, perfect in balance; a new 
pair of pads, white as driven snow; gloves of 
the very latest design. Do they let you use them? 
No. After one ball, in the negotiation of which 
neither your bat, nor your pads, nor your gloves 
came into play, they send you back into the pa- 
vilion to spend the rest of the afternoon listening 
to fatuous stories of some old gentleman who 
knew Fuller Pilch. And when your side takes 
the field, where are you? Probably at long leg 
both ends, exposed to the public gaze as the worst 
fieldsman in London. How devastating are your 
emotions. Remorse, anger, mortification fill vour 

28 



The Charm of Golf 29 

heart; above all, envy — envy of the lucky immor- 
tals who disport themselves on the green level of 
Lord's. 

Consider what it is to be bad at lawn tennis. 
True, you are allowed to hold on to your new 
racket all through the game, but how often are 
you allowed to employ it usefully? How often 
does your partner cry "Mine!" and bundle you 
out of the way? Is there pleasure in playing foot- 
ball badly? You may spend the full eighty min- 
utes in your new boots, but your relations with 
the ball will be distant. They do not give you a 
ball to yourself at football. 

But how different a game is golf. At golf it 
is the bad player who gets the most strokes. How- 
ever good his opponent, the bad player has the 
right to play out each hole to the end; he will 
get more than his share of the game. He need 
have no fears that his new driver will not be em- 
ployed. He will have as many swings with it as 
the scratch man; more, if he misses the ball alto- 
gether upon one or two tees. If he buys a new 
niblick he is certain to get fun out of it on the 
very first day. 

And, above all, there is this to be said for 
golfing mediocrity — ^the bad player can make the 
strokes of the good player. The poor cricketer 



30 Not That It Matters 

has perhaps never made fifty in his life; as soon 
as he stands at the wickets he knows that he is 
not going to make fifty to-day. But the eighteen- 
handicap man has some time or other played every 
hole on the course to perfection. He has driven 
a ball 250 yards; he has made superb approaches; 
he has run down the long putt. Any of these 
things may suddenly happen to him again. And 
therefore it is not his fate to have to sit in the 
club smoking-room after his second round and 
listen to the wonderful deeds of others. He can 
join in too. He can say with perfect truth, "I 
once carried the ditch at the fourth with my sec- 
ond," or "I remember when I drove into the 
bunker guarding the eighth green," or even "I 
did a three at the eleventh this afternoon" — 
bogey being five. But if the bad cricketer says, 
*'I remember when I took a century in forty min- 
utes off Lockwood and Richardson," he is noth- 
ing but a liar. 

For these and other reasons golf is the best 
game in the world for the bad player. And 
sometimes I am tempted to go further and say 
that it is a better game for the bad player than 
for the good player. The joy of driving a ball 
straight after a week of slicing, the joy of putting 
a mashie shot dead, the joy of even a moderate 



The Charm of Golf 31 

stroke with a brassie; best of all, the joy of the 
perfect cleek shot — these things the good player 
will never know. Every stroke we bad players 
make we make in hope. It is never so bad but 
it might have been worse; it is never so bad but 
we are confident of doing better next time. And 
if the next stroke Is good, what happiness fills 
our soul. How eagerly we tell ourselves that in 
a little while all our strokes will be as good. 

What does Vardon know of this? If he does 
a five hole in four he blames himself that he did 
not do It In three ; If he does It In five he is mis- 
erable. He will never experience that happy sur- 
prise with which we hail our best strokes. Only 
his bad strokes surprise him, and then we may 
suppose that he is not happy. His length and 
accuracy are mechanical; they are not the result, 
as so often In our case, of some suddenly applied 
maxim or some suddenly discovered innovation. 
The only thing which can vary in his game is his 
putting, and putting is not golf but croquet. 

But of course we, too, are going to be as good 
as Vardon one day. We are only postponing the 
day because meanwhile It Is so pleasant to be bad. 
And it is part of the charm of being bad at golf 
that In a moment, in a single night, we may be- 
come good. If the bad cricketer said to a good 



32 Not That It Matters 

cricketer, "What am I doing wrong?" the only 
possible answer would be, "Nothing particular, 
except that you can't play cricket." But if you or 
I were to say to our scratch friend, "What am I 
doing wrong?" he would reply at once, "Moving 
the head" or "Dropping the right knee" or "Not 
getting the wrists in soon enough," and by to- 
morrow we should be different players. Upon 
such a little depends, or seems to the eighteen- 
handicap to depend, excellence in golf. 

And so, perfectly happy in our present -badness 
and perfectly confident of our future goodness, 
we long-handicap men remain. Perhaps it would 
be pleasanter to be a little more certain of getting 
the ball safely off the first tee; perhaps at the 
fourteenth hole, Vv^here there is a right of way and 
the public encroach, we should like to feel that we 
have done with topping; perhaps 

Well, perhaps we might get our handicap down 
to fifteen this summer. But no lower; certainly 
no lower. 



GoldfisH. 

LET us talk about — well, anything you will. 
Goldfish, for instance. 

Goldfish are a symbol of old-world tranquillity 
or mid-Victorian futility according to their posi- 
tion in the home. Outside the home, in that wild 
state from which civilization has dragged them, 
they may have stood for dare-devil courage or 
constancy or devotion; I cannot tell. I may only 
speak of them now as I find them, which is in 
the garden or in the drawing-room. In their 
lily-leaved pool, sunk deep in the old flagged ter- 
race, upon whose borders the blackbird whistles 
his early-morning song, they remind me of sun- 
dials and lavender and old delightful things. But 
in their cheap glass bowl upon the three-legged 
table, above which the cloth-covered canary main- 
tains a stolid silence, they remind me of anti- 
macassar^ and horsehair sofas and all that is de- 
pressing. It is hard that the goldfish himself 
should have so little choice in the matter. 

Goldfish look pretty in the terrace pond, yet I 
doubt if it was the need for prettiness which 

33 



34 Not That It Matters 

brought them there. Rather the need for some- 
thing to throw things to. No one of the initiate 
can sit in front of Nature's most wonderful effect, 
the sea, without wishing to throw stones into It, 
the physical pleasure of the effort and the aesthetic 
pleasure of the splash combining to produce per- 
fect contentment. So by the margin of the pool, 
the same desires stir within one, and because ants' 
eggs do not splash, and look untidy on the sur- 
face of the water, there must be a gleam of gold 
and silver to put the crown upon one's pleasure. 

Perhaps when you have been feeding the gold- 
fish you have not thought of it like that. But at 
least you must have wondered why, of all diets, 
they should prefer ants' eggs. Ants' eggs are, I 
should say, the very last thing which one would 
take to without argument. It must be an acquired 
taste, and, this being so, one naturally asks one- 
self how goldfish came to acquire it. 

I suppose (but I am lamentably Ignorant on 
these as on all other matters) that there was a 
time when goldfish lived a wild free life of their 
own. They roamed the sea or the river, or what- 
ever it was, fighting for existence, and Nature 
showed them, as she always does, the food which 
suited them. Now I have often come across ants' 
nests In my travels, but never when swimming. 



Goldfish 35 

In seas and rivers, pools and lakes, I have wan- 
dered, but Nature has never put ants' eggs in my 
way. No doubt — it would be only right — the 
goldfish has a keener eye than I have for these 
things, but if they had been there, should I have 
missed them so completely? I think not, for if 
they had been there, they must have been there in 
great quantities. I can imagine a goldfish slowly 
acquiring the taste for them through the centuries, 
but only if other food were denied to him, only 
if, wherever he went, ants' eggs, ants' eggs, ants' 
eggs drifted down the stream to him. 

Yet, since it would seem that he has acquired 
the taste, it can only be that the taste has come 
to him with captivity — has been forced upon him, 
I should have said. The old wild goldfish (this 
is my theory) was a more terrible beast than we 
think. Given his proper diet, he could not have 
been kept within the limits of the terrace pooL 
He would have been unsuited to domestic life; 
he would have dragged in the shrieking child a» 
she leant to feed him. As the result of many 
experiments ants' eggs were given him to keep 
him thin (you can see for yourself what a blood- 
less diet it is), ants' eggs were given him to 
quell his spirit; and just as a man, if he has 
sufficient colds, can get up a passion even for am- 



36 Not That It Matters 

moniated quinine, so the goldfish has grown in 
captivity to welcome the once-hated omelette. 

Let us consider now the case of the goldfish In 
the house. His diet Is the same, but how different 
his surroundings! If his bowl Is placed on a table 
in the middle of the floor, he has but to flash his 
tall once and he has been all round the drawing- 
room. The drawing-room may not seem much 
to you, but to him this Impressionist picture 
through the curved glass must be amazing. Let 
not the outdoor goldfish boast of his freedom. 
What does he. In his little world of water-lily 
roots, know of the vista upon vista which opens 
to his more happy brother as he passes jauntily 
from china dog to ottoman and from ottoman to 
Henry's father? Ah, here Is life! It may be 
that In the course of years he will get used to It, 
even bored by It; Indeed, for that reason I always 
advocate giving him a glance at the dining-room 
or the bedrooms on Wednesdays and Saturdays; 
but his first day In the bowl must be the opening 
of an undreamt-of heaven to him. 

Again, what an adventurous life is his. At 
any moment a cat may climb up and fetch him 
out, a child may upset him, grown-ups may neglect 
to feed him or to change his water. The tempta- 
tion to take him up and massage him must be 



Goldfish 37 

irresistible to outsiders. All these dangers the 
goldfish in the pond avoids; he lives a sheltered 
and unexciting life, and when he wants to die he 
dies unnoticed, unregretted, but for his brother 
the tears and the solemn funeral. 

Yes; now that I have thought It out, I can 
see that I was wrong in calling the Indoor gold- 
fish a symbol of mid-Victorian futility. An article 
of this sort is no good if it does not teach the 
writer something as well as his readers. I recog- 
nize him now as the symbol of enterprise and en- 
durance, of restlessness and Post-Impressionism. 
He Is not mid-Victorian, he is Fifth Georgian. 

Which is all I want to say about goldfish. 



Saturday to Monday. 

THE happy man would have happy faces 
round him; a sad face is a reproach to him 
for his happiness. So when I escape by the 2.10 
on Saturday I distribute largesse with a liberal 
hand. The cabman, feeling that an effort is re- 
quired of him, mentions that I am the first gen- 
tleman he has met that day; he penetrates my 
mufti and calls me captain, leaving it open whether 
he regards me as a Salvation Army captain or 
the captain of a barge. The porters hasten to the 
door of my cab ; there is a little struggle between 
them as to who shall have the honour of waiting* 
upon me. . . . 

Inside the station things go on as happily. The 
booking-office clerk gives me a pleasant smile; 
he seems to approve of the station I am taking. 
"Some do go to Brighton," he implies, *'but for 

a gentleman like you- " He pauses to point 

out that with this ticket I can come back on the 
Tuesday if I like (as, between ourselves, I hope to 
do). In exchange for his courtesies I push him 
my paper through the pigeon hole. A dirty little 

38 



Saturday to Monday 39 

boy thrust it into my cab; I didn't want it, but 
as we are all being happy to-day he had his penny. 

I follow my porter to the platform. "On the 
left," says the ticket collector. He has said it 
mechanically to a hundred persons, but he be- 
comes human and kindly as he says it to me. I 
feel that he really wishes me to get into the right 
train, to have a pleasant journey down, to be 
welcomed heartily by my friends when I arrive. 
It is not as to one of a mob but to an individual 
that he speaks. 

The porter has found me an empty carriage. 
He is full of ideas for my comfort; he tells me 
which way the train will start, where we stop, 
and when we may be expected to arrive. Am I 
sure I wouldn't like my bag in the van? Can he 
get me any papers? No ; no, thanks. I don't want 
to read. I give him sixpence, and there is another 
one of us happy. 

Presently the guard. He also seems pleased 
that I have selected this one particular station 
from among so many. Pleased, but not aston- 
ished; he expected it of me. It is a very good 
run down in his train, and he shouldn't be sur- 
prised if we had a fine week-end. . . . 

I stand at the door of my carriage feeling very 
happy. It is good to get out of London. Come 



40 Not That It Matters 

to think of it, we are all getting out of London, 
and none of us is going to do any work to-morrow. 
How jolly! Oh, but what about my porter? 
Bother I I wish now I'd given him more than 
sixpence. Still, he may have a sweetheart and 
be happy that way. 

We are off. I have nothing to read, but then 
I want to think. It is the ideal place in which 
to think, a railway carriage; the ideal place in 
which to be happy. I wonder if I shall be in good 
form this week-end at cricket and tennis, and 
croquet and billiards, and all the other jolly games 
I mean to play. Look at those children trying 
to play cricket in that dirty backyard. Poor 
little beggars ! Fancy living in one of those horri- 
ble squalid houses. But you cannot spoil to-day 
for me, little backyards. On Tuesday perhaps, 
when I am coming again to the ugly town, your 
misery will make me miserable; I shall ask my- 
self hopelessly what it all means; but just now I 
am too happy for pity. After all, why should I 
assume that you envy me, you two children swing- 
ing on a gate and waving to me? You are happy, 
aren't you? Of course; we are all happy to-day. 
See, I am waving back to you. 

My eyes wander round the carriage and rest 
on my bag. Have I put everything in? Of 



Saturday to Monday 41 

course I have. Then why this uneasy feeling that 
I have left something very Important out? Well, 
I can soon settle the question. Let's start with 
to-night. Evening clothes — they're in, I know. 
Shirts, collars. . . . 

I go through the whole programme for the 
week-end, allotting myself In my mind suitable 
clothes for each occasion. Yes; I seem to have 
brought everything that I can possibly want. But 
what a very jolly programme I am drawing up 
for myself! Will It really be as delightful as 
that? Well, It was last time, and the time before ; 
that is why I am so happy. 

The train draws up at its only halt in the glow 
of a September mid-afternoon. There is a little 
pleasant bustle ; nice people get out and nice peo- 
ple meet them; everybody seems very cheery and 
contented. Then we are off again . . . and now 
the next station Is mine. 

We are there. A porter takes my things with 
a kindly smile and a *'NIce day." I see Brant 
outside with the wagonette, not the trap; then 
I am not the only guest coming by this train. 
Who are the others, I wonder. Anybody I know ? 
. . . Why, yes, it's Bob and Mrs. Bob, and — 
hallo! — Cynthia! And Isn't that old Anderby? 
How splendid ! I must get that shilling back from 



42 Not That It Matters 

Bob that I lost to him at billiards last time. And 
if Cynthia really thinks that she can play 
croquet. . . . 

We greet each other happily and climb into 
the wagonette. Never has the country looked so 
lovely. "No; no rain at all," says Brant, "and 
the glass is going up." The porter puts our lug- 
gage in the cart and comes round with a smile. 
It is a rotten life being a porter, and I do so 
want everybody to enjoy the afternoon. Besides, 
I haven't any coppers. 

I slip half a crown into his palm. Now we are 
all very, very happy. 



The Pond 

MY friend Aldenham's pond stands at a con- 
venient distance from the house, and is 
reached by a well-drained gravel path; so that 
in any weather one may walk, alone or in com- 
pany, dry shod to its brink, and estimate roughly 
how many inches of rain have fallen in the night. 
The ribald call it the hippopotamus pond, tracing 
a resemblance between it and the bath of the 
hippopotamus at the Zoo, beneath the waters of 
which, if you particularly desire to point the 
hippopotamus out to somebody, he always lies 
hidden. To the rest of us it is known simply as 
"the pond'' — a designation which ignores the ex- 
istence of several neighbouring ponds, the gifts 
of nature, and gives the whole credit to the handi- 
work of man. For "the pond" is just a small ar- 
tificial affair of cement, entirely unpretentious. 

There are seven steps to the bottom of the 
pond, and each step is lO in. high. Thus the 
fttcps help to make the pond a convenient rain- 
gauge ; for obviously when only three steps are left 
uncovered, as was the case last Monday, you 

43 



44 Not That It Matters 

know that there have been 40 in. of rain since 
last month, when the pond began to fill. To 
strangers this may seem surprising, and it is 
only fair to tell them the great secret, which is 
that much of the surrounding land drains secretly 
into the pond too. This seems to me to give a 
much fairer indication of the rain that has fallen 
than do the official figures in the newspapers. For 
when your whole day's cricket has been spoilt, it 
is perfectly absurd to be told that .026 of an 
inch of rain has done the damage ; the soul yearns 
for something more startling than that. The 
record of the pond, that there has been another 
5 in., soothes us, where the record of the ordinary 
pedantic rain-gauge would leave us infuriated. It 
speaks much for my friend Aldenham's breadth 
of view that he understood this, and planned the 
pond accordingly. 

A most necessary thing in a country house is 
that there should be a recognized meeting-place, 
where the people who have been writing a few 
letters after breakfast may, when they have fin- 
ished, meet those who have no intention of writ- 
ing any, and arrange plans with them for the 
morning. I am one of those who cannot write 
letters in another man's house, and when my pipe 
is well alight I say to Miss Robinson — or whoever 



The Pond 45 

it may be — "Let's go and look at the pond.'* 
''Right oh," she says wilHngly enough, having 
spent the last quarter of an hour with The Times 
Financial Supplement^ all of the paper that is left 
to the women in the first rush for the cricket news. 
We wander down to the pond together, and per- 
haps find Brown and Miss Smith there. "A lot 
of rain in the night," says Brown. "It was only 
just over the third step after lunch yesterday." 
We have a little argument about it, Miss Robin- 
son being convinced that she stood on the second 
step after breakfast, and Miss Smith repeating 
that it looks exactly the same to her this morn- 
ing. By and by two or three others stroll up, 
and we all make measurements together. The 
general opinion is that there has been a lot of 
rain in the night, and that 43 in. in three weeks 
must be a record. But, anyhow, it is fairly fine 
now, and what about a little lawn tennis? Or 
golf? Or croquet? Or ? And so the ar- 
rangements for the morning are made. 

And they can be made more readily out of 
doors; for — supposing it is fine — the fresh air 
calls you to be doing something, and the sight 
of the newly marked tennis lawn fills you with 
thoughts of revenge for your accidental defeat 
the evening before. But indoors it is so easy to 



46 Not That It Matters 

drop into a sofa after breakfast, and, once there 
with all the papers, to be disinclined to leave it 
till lunch-time. A man or woman as lazy as this 
must not be rushed. Say to such a one, "Come 
and play," and the invitation will be declined. 
Say, **Come and look at the pond," and the worst 
sluggard will not refuse such gentle exercise. And 
once he is out he is out. 

All this for those delightful summer days when 
there are fine intervals; but consider the advan- 
tages of the pond when the rain streams down 
in torrents from morning till night. How tired 
we get of being indoors on these days, even with 
the best of books, the pleasantest of companions, 
the easiest of billiard tables. Yet if our hostess 
were to see us marching out with an umbrella, 
how odd she would think us. "Where are you 
off to?" she would ask, and we could only answer 
lamely, "Er — I was just going to — er — walk 
about a bit." But now we tell her brightly, "I'm 
going to see the pond. It must be nearly full. 
Won't you come too?" And with any luck she 
comes. 

And you know, it even reconciles us a little to 
these streaming days to reflect that it all goes to 
fill the pond. For there is ever before our minds 
that great moment in the future when the pond 



The Pond 47 

is at last full. What will happen then? Alden- 
ham may know, but we his guests do not. Some 
think there will be merely a flood over the sur- 
rounding paths and the kitchen garden, but for 
myself I believe that we are promised something 
much bigger than that. A man with such a broad 
and friendly outlook towards rain-gauges will be 
sure to arrange something striking when the great 
moment arrives. Some sort of fete will help to 
celebrate it, I have no doubt; with an open-air 
play, tank drama, or what not. At any rate we 
have every hope that he will empty the pond as 
speedily as possible so that we may watch it fill 
again. 

I must say that he has been a little lucky in 
his choice of a year for inaugurating the pond. 
But, all the same, there are now 45 in. of rain in 
It, 45 in. of rain have fallen in the last three 
weeks, and I think that something ought to be 
done about it. 



A Seventeenth-Century Story. 



'T 



HERE Is a story in every name in that first 
column of The Times — Births, Marriages, 
and Deaths — down which we glance each morn- 
ing, but, unless the name is known to us, we do 
not bother about the stories of other people. 
They are those not very interesting people, our 
contemporaries. But in a country churchyard a 
name on an old tombstone will set us wonder- 
ing a little. What sort of life came to an end 
there a hundred years ago? 

In the parish register we shall find the whole 
history of them; when they were born, when they 
were married, how many children they had, when 
they died — a skeleton of their lives which we 
can clothe with our fancies and make living again. 
Simple lives, we make them, in that pleasant coun- 
tryside; *TV[an comes and tills the field and lies 
beneath" ; that is all. Simple work, simple pleas- 
ures, and a simple death. 

Of course we are wrong. There were passions 
and pains in those lives; tragedies perhaps. The 
tombstones and the registers say nothing of them ; 

48 



A Seventeenth-Century Story 49 

or, if they say it, it is in a cypher to which we 
have not the key. Yet sometimes the key is almost 
in our hands. Here is a story from the register 
of a village church — four entries only, but they 
hide a tragedy which with a little imagination we 
can almost piece together for ourselves. 

The first entry is a marriage. John Meadowes 
of Littlehaw Manor, bachelor, took Mary Field 
to wife (both of this parish) on 7th November, 
1681. 

There were no children of the marriage. In- 
deed, it only lasted a year. A year later, on 12th 
November, 1682, John died and was buried. 

Poor Mary Meadowes was now alone at the 
Manor. We picture her sitting there in her lone- 
liness, broken-hearted, refusing to be com- 
forted. . . . 

Until we come to the third entry. John has 
only been in his grave a month, but here is the 
third entry, telling us that on 12th December, 
1682, Robert Cliff, bachelor, was married to Mary 
Meadowes, widow. It spoils our picture of 
her. . . . 

And then the fourth entry. It is the fourth 
entry which reveals the tragedy, which makes 
us wonder what is the story hidden away in the 
parish register of Littlehaw — the mystery of 



50 Not That It Matters 

Littlehaw Manor. For here is another death, 
the death of Mary Cliff, and Maty Cliff died on 
. . . 13th December, 1682. 

And she was buried in unconsecrated ground. 

For Mary Cliff (we must suppose) had killed 
herself. She had killed herself on the day after 
her marriage to her second husband. 

Well, what is the story? We shall have to 
make it up for ourselves. Here is my rendering 
of it. I have no means of finding out if it is the 
correct one, but it seems to fit itself within the 
facts as we know them. 

Mary Field was the daughter of well-to-do 
parents, an only child, and the most desirable 
bride, from the worldly point of view, in the 
village. No wonder, then, that her parents' 
choice of a husband for her fell upon the most 
desirable bridegroom of the village — John 
Meadowes. The Fields' land adjoined Little- 
haw Manor; one day the child of John and Mary 
would own it all. Let a marriage, then, be ar- 
ranged. 

But Mary loved Robert Cliff whole-heartedly 
— Robert, a man of no standing at all. A ridic- 
ulous notion, said her parents, but the silly girl 
would grow out of it. She was taken by a hand- 
some face. Once she was safely wedded to John, 



A Seventeenth-Century Story 51 

she would forget her foolishness. John might 
not be handsome, but he was a solid, steady fel- 
low; which was more — much more, as it turned 
out — than could be said for Robert. 

So John and Mary married. But she still loved 
Robert. ... 

Did she kill her husband? Did she and Robert 
kill him together? Or did she only hasten his 
death by her neglect of him in some illness? Did 
she dare him to ride some devil of a horse which 
she knew he could not master; did she taunt him 
into some foolhardy feat; or did she deliberately 
kill him — with or without her lover's aid? I can- 
not guess, but of this I am certain. His death 
was on her conscience. Directly or indirectly she 
was responsible for it — or, at any rate, felt her- 
self responsible for it. But she would not think 
of it too closely; she had room for only one 
thought in her mind. She was mistress of Little- 
haw Manor now, and free to marry whom she 
wished. Free, at last, to marry Robert. What- 
ever had been done had been worth doing for that. 

So she married him. And then — so I read 
the story — she discovered the truth. Robert had 
never loved her. He had wanted to marry the 
rich Miss Field, that was all. Still more, he had 
wanted to marry the rich Mrs. Meadowes. He 



52 Not That It Matters 

was quite callous about it. She might as well 
know the truth now as later. It would save 
trouble In the future, if she knew. 

So Mary killed herself. She had murdered 
John for nothing. Whatever her responsibility 
for John's death, In the bitterness of that dis- 
covery she would call it murder. She had a 
murder on her conscience for love*s sake — and 
there was no love. What else to do but follow 
John? . . . 

Is that the story ? I wonder. 



Our Learned Friends. 

I DO not know why the Bar has always seemed 
the most respectable of the professions, a 
profession which the hero of almost any novel 
could adopt without losing caste. But so it is. 
A schoolmaster can be referred to contemptuously 
as an usher; a doctor is regarded humorously as 
a licensed murderer; a solicitor is always retiring 
to gaol for making away with trust funds, and, 
In any case, is merely an attorney while a civil ser- 
vant sleeps from ten to four every day, and is 
only waked up at sixty In order to be given a 
pension. But there is no humorous comment to 
be made upon the barrister — unless it is to call 
him "my learned friend." He has much more 
right than the actor to claim to be a member of 
the profession. I don't know why. Perhaps it 
is because he walks about the Temple in a top-hat. 
So many of one's acquaintances at some time 
or other have "eaten dinners" that one hardly 
dares to say anything against the profession. Be- 
sides, one never knows when one may not want 
to be defended. However, I shall take the risk, 

S3 



54 Not That It Matters 

and put the barrister in the dock. *' Gentlemen 
of the jury, observe this well-dressed gentleman 
before you. What shall we say about him ?" 

Let us first begin by asking ourselves what we 
expect from a profession. In the first place, cer- 
tainly, we expect a hving, but I think we want 
something more than that. If we were offered a 
thousand a year to walk from Charing Cross to 
Barnet every day, reasons of poverty might com- 
pel us to accept the offer, but we should hardly 
be proud of our new profession. We should 
prefer to earn a thousand a year by doing some 
more useful work. Indeed, to a man of any fine 
feeling the profession of Barnet-walking would 
only be tolerable if he could persuade himself that 
by his exertions he was helping to revive the 
neglected art of pedestrianism, or to make more 
popular the neglected beauties of Barnet; if he 
could hope that, after his three-hundredth jour- 
ney, inquisitive people would begin to follow him, 
wondering what he was after, and so come sud- 
denly upon the old Norman church at the cross- 
roads, or, if they missed this, at any rate upon a 
much better appetite for their dinner. That is 
to say, he would have to persuade himself that he 
was walking, not only for himself, but also for the 
community. 



Our Learned Friends 55 

It seems to me, then, that a profession is a 
noble or an ignoble one, according as it offers or 
denies to him who practises it the opportunity of 
working for some other end than his own advance- 
ment. A doctor collects fees from his patients, 
but he is aiming at something more than pounds, 
shillings, and pence; he is out to put an end to 
suffering. A schoolmaster earns a living by teach- 
ing, but he does not feel that he is fighting only 
for himself; he is a crusader on behalf of educa- 
tion. The artist, whatever his medium, is giv- 
ing a message to the world, expressing the truth 
as he sees it; for his own profit, perhaps, but not 
for that alone. All these and a thousand other 
ways of living have something of nobility in them. 
We enter them full of high resolves. We tell 
ourselves that we will follow the light as it has 
been revealed to us ; that our ideals shall never be 
lowered; that we will refuse to sacrifice our prin- 
ciples to our interests. We fail, of course. The 
painter finds that "Mother's Darling" brings in 
the stuff, and he turns out Mother's Darlings me- 
chanically. The doctor neglects research and cul- 
tivates instead a bedside manner. The school- 
master drops all his theories of education and con- 
forms hastily to those of his employers. We fail, 
but it is not because the profession is an ignoble 



56 Not That It Matters 

one; wc had our chances. Indeed, the light is still 
there for those who look. It beckons to us. 

Now what of the Bar? Is the barrister after 
anything other than his own advancement? He 
follows what gleam? What are his ideals? 
Never mind whether he fails more often or less 
often than others to attain them ; I am not both- 
ering about that. I only want to know what it 
is that he is after. In the quiet hours when we 
are alone with ourselves and there is nobody to tell 
us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes 
upon a weak moment in which we wonder, not 
how much money we are earning, nor how famous 
we are becoming, but what good we are doing. 
If a barrister ever has such a moment, what is 
his consolation? It can only be that he is help- 
ing Justice to be administered. If he is to be 
proud of his profession, and in that lonely mo- 
ment tolerant of himself, he must feel that he 
is taking a noble part in the vindication of legal 
right, the punishment of legal wrong. But he 
must do more than this. Just as the doctor, with 
increased knowledge and experience, becomes a 
better fighter against disease, advancing himself, 
no doubt, but advancing also medical science ; just 
as the schoolmaster, having learnt new and better 
ways of teaching, can now give a better education 



Our Learned Friends 57 

to his boys, Increasing thereby the sum of knowl- 
edge; so the barrister must be able to tell him- 
self that the more expert he becomes as an advo- 
cate, the better will he be able to help in the 
administration of this justice which is his Ideal. 

Can he tell himself this? I do not see how he 
can. His Increased expertness will be of Increased 
service to himself, of Increased service to his 
clients, but no Ideal will be the better served by 
reason of It. Let us take a case — Smith v. Jones. 
Counsel is briefed for Smith. After examining 
the case he tells himself In effect this : *'As far as 
I can see, the Law is all on the other side. Luck- 
ily, however, sentiment Is on our side. Given an 
impressionable jury, there's just a chance that we 
might pull It off. It's worth trying." He tries, 
and If he Is sufficiently expert he pulls it off. A 
triumph for himself, but what has happened to 
the Ideal? Did he even think, "Of course I'm 
bound to do the best for my client, but he's In the 
wrong, and I hope we lose?" I Imagine not. 
The whole teaching of the Bar Is that he must 
not bother about justice, but only about his own 
victory. What ultimately, then. Is he after? 
What does the Bar offer Its devotees — ^beyond 
material success? 

I asked just now what were a barrister's Ideals. 



58 Not That It Matters 

Suppose we ask instead, What is the ideal bar- 
rister? If one spoke loosely of an ideal doctor, 
one would not necessarily mean a titled gentle- 
man in Harley Street. An ideal schoolmaster is 
not synonymous with the Headmaster of Eton 
or the owner of the most profitable preparatory 
school. But can there be an ideal barrister other 
than a successful barrister? The eager young 
writer, just beginning a literary career, might 
fix his eyes upon Francis Thompson rather than 
upon Sir Hall Caine; the eager young clergy- 
man might dream dreams over the Life of Father 
Damien more often than over the Life of the 
Archbishop of Canterbury; but to what star can 
the eager young barrister hitch his wagon, save 
to the star of material success? If he does not 
see himself as Sir Edward Carson, it is only be- 
cause he thinks that perhaps after all Sir John 
Simon's manner is the more effective. 

There may be other answers to the questions 
I have asked than the answers I have given, but 
It is no answer to ask me how the law can be 
administered without barristers. I do not know; 
nor do I know how the roads can be swept with- 
out getting somebody to sweep them. But that 
would not disqualify me from saying that road- 
sweeping was an unattractive profession. So also 



» Our Learned Friends 59 

I am entitled to my opinion about the Bar, which 
Is this. That because it offers material victories 
only and never spiritual ones, that because there 
can be no standard by which its disciples are 
judged save the earthly standard, that because 
there Is no place within its ranks for the altruist or 
the Idealist — for these reasons the Bar is not one 
of the noble professions. 



A Word for Autumn. 

LAST night the waiter put the celery on with 
the cheese, and I knew that summer was 
indeed dead. Other signs of autumn there may 
be — the reddening leaf, the chill in the early- 
morning air, the misty evenings — but none of these 
comes home to me so truly. There may be cool 
mornings in July; in a year of drought the leaves 
may change before their time ; it is only with the 
first celery that summer is over. 

I knew all along that it would not last. Even 
in April I was saying that winter would soon be 
here. Yet somehow it had begun to seem pos- 
sible lately that a miracle might happen, that 
summer might drift on and on through the months 
— a final upheaval to crown a wonderful year. 
The celery settled that. Last night with the celery- 
autumn came into its own. 

There is a crispness about celery that is of the 
essence of October. It is as fresh and clean as 
a rainy day after a spell of heat. It crackles 
pleasantly in the mouth. Moreover it is excel- 
lent, I am told, for the complexion. One is 

60 



A Word for Autumn 6i 

always hearing of things which are good for the 
complexion, but there is no doubt that celery 
stands high on the list. After the burns and 
freckles of summer one is in need of something. 
How good that celery should be there at one's 
elbow. 

A week ago — ^("A little more cheese, waiter") 
— a week ago I grieved for the dying summer. 
I wondered how I could possibly bear the waiting 
— the eight long months till May. In vain to 
comfort myself with the thought that I could get 
through more work in the winter undistracted by 
thoughts of cricket grounds and country houses. 
In vain, equally, to tell myself that I could stay 
in bed later in the mornings. Even the thought 
of after-breakfast pipes in front of the fire left me 
cold. But now, suddenly, I am reconciled to 
autumn. I see quite clearly that all good things 
must come to an end. The summer has been 
splendid, but it has lasted long enough. This 
morning I welcomed the chill in the air; this 
morning I viewed the falling leaves with cheerful- 
ness; and this morning I said to myself, *'Why, 
of course, I'll have celery for lunch." ('*More 
bread, waiter.") 

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," said 
Keats, not actually picking out celery In so many 



62 Not That It Matters 

words, but plainly including it in the general 
blessings of the autumn. Yet what an opportu- 
nity he missed by not concentrating on that pre- 
cious root. Apples, grapes, nuts, and vegetable 
marrows he mentions specially — and how poor a 
selection ! For apples and grapes are not typical 
of any month, so ubiquitous are they, vegetable 
marrows are vegetables pour rire and have no 
place in any serious consideration of the seasons, 
while as for nuts, have we not a national song 
which asserts distinctly, "Here we go gathering 
nuts in May?" Season of mists and mellow cel- 
ery, then let it be. A pat of butter underneath 
the bough, a wedge of cheese, a loaf of bread 
and — Thou. 

How delicate are the tender shoots unfolded 
layer by layer. Of what a whiteness is the last 
baby one of all, of what a sweetness his flavour. 
It is well that this should be the last rite of the 
meal — finis coronat opus — so that we may go 
straight on to the business of the pipe. Celery 
demands a pipe rather than a cigar, and it can be 
eaten better in an inn or a London tavern than in 
the home. Yes, and it should be eaten alone, 
for it is the only food which one really wants to 
hear oneself eat. Besides, in company one may 
have to consider the wants of others. Celery is 



A Word for Autumn 63 

not a thing to share with any man. Alone in 
your country inn you may call for the celery; 
but if you are wise you will see that no other 
traveller wanders into the room. Take warning 
from one who has learnt a lesson. One day I 
lunched alone at an inn, finishing with cheese 
and celery. Another traveller came in and 
lunched too. We did not speak — I was busy with 
my celery. From the other end of the table he 
reached across for the cheese. That was all 
right; it was the public cheese. But he also 
reached across for the celery — my private celery 
for which I owed. Foolishly — ^you know how one 
does — I had left the sweetest and crispest shoots 
till the last, tantalizing myself pleasantly with the 
thought of them. Horror ! to see them snatched 
from me by a stranger. He realized later what 
he had done and apologized, but of what good 
is an apology in such circumstances? Yet at 
least the tragedy was not without its value. Now 
one remembers to lock the door. 

Yes, I can face the winter with calm. I sup- 
pose I had forgotten what it was really like. I 
had been thinking of the winter as a horrid, wet, 
dreary time fit only for professional football. 
Now I can see other things — crisp and sparkhng 
days, long pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good 



64 Not That It Matters 

work shall be done this winter. Life shall be 
lived well. The end of the summer is not the 
end of the world. Here's to October — and, 
waiter, some more celery. 



A Christmas Number. 

THE common joke against the Christmas 
number Is that It Is planned In July and 
made up In September. This enables it to be 
published In the middle of November and circu- 
lated In New Zealand by Christmas. If It were 
published In England at Christmas, New Zealand 
wouldn't get It till February. Apparently It Is 
more Important that the colonies should have it 
punctually than that we should. 

Anyway, whenever It Is made up, all journalists 
hate the Christmas number. But they only hate 
It for one reason — this being that the ordinary 
weekly number has to be made up at the same 
time. As a journalist I should like to devote the 
autumn exclusively to the Christmas number, and 
as a member of the public I should adore It when 
It came out. Not having been asked to produce 
such a number on my own I can amuse myself 
here by sketching out a plan for It. I follow the 
fine old tradition. 

First let us get the stories settled , ^i^ory No. i 
deals with the escaped convict. The uerolne is 

65 



66 Not That It Matters 

driving back from the country-house ball, where 
she has had two or three proposals, when sud- 
denly, in the most lonely part of the snow-swept 
moor, a figure springs out of the ditch and covers 
the coachman with a pistol. Alarms and con- 
fusions. "Oh, sir,'' says the heroine, "spare my 
aunt and I will give you all my jewels." The con- 
vict, for such it is, staggers back. "Lucy!" he 
cries "Harold!" she gasps. The aunt says noth- 
ing, for she has swooned. At this point the story 
stops to explain how Harold came to be in knick- 
erbockers. He had either been falsely accused 
or else he had been a solicitor. Anyhow, he had 
by this time more than paid for his folly, and 
Lucy still loved him. "Get in," she says, and 
drives him home. Next day he leaves for New 
Zealand in an ordinary lounge suit. Need I say 
that Lucy joins him later? No; that shall be 
left for your imagination. The End. 

So much for the first story. The second is an 
"i'-faith-and-stap-me" story of the good old days. 
It is not seasonable, for most of the action takes 
place in my lord's garden amid the scent of roses; 
but it brings back to us the old romantic days when 
fighting and swearing were more picturesque than 
they are now, and when women loved and worked 
samplers. This sort of story can be read best 



A Christmas Number 67 

in front of the Christmas log; it is of the past, 
and comes naturally into a Christmas number. I 
shall not describe its plot, for that is unimportant ; 
it Is the "stap me's" and the "la, sirs," which 
matter. But I may say that she marries him 
all right in the end, and he goes off happily to 
the wars. 

We want another story. What shall this one 
be about? It might be about the amateur bur- 
glar, or the little child who reconciled old Sir 
John to his daughter's marriage, or the ghost at 
Enderby Grange, or the millionaire's Christmas 
dinner, or the accident to the Scotch express. 
Personally, I do not care for any of these; my 
vote goes for the desert-island story. Proud Lady 
Julia has fallen off the deck of the liner, and 
Ronald, refused by her that morning, dives off the 
hurricane deck — or the bowsprit or wherever he 
happens to be — and seizes her as she Is sinking 
for the third time. It is a foggy night and their 
absence is unnoticed. Dawn finds them together 
on a little coral reef. They are in no danger, for 
several liners are due to pass in a day or two and 
Ronald's pockets are full of biscuits and chocolate, 
but it is awkward for Lady Julia, who had hoped 
that they would never meet again. So they sit 
on the beach back to back (drawn by Dana 



68 Not That It Matters 

Gibson) and throw sarcastic remarks over their 
shoulders at each other. In the end he tames her 
proud spirit — I think by hiding the turtles' eggs 
from her — and the next liner but one takes the 
happy couple back to civilization. 

But it Is time we had some poetry. I propose 
to give you one serious poem about robins, and 
one double-page humorous piece, well illustrated 
in colours. I think the humorous verses must 
deal with hunting. Hunting does not lend Itself 
to humour, for tihere are only two hunting jokes 
— the joke of the horse which came down at the 
brook and the joke of the Cockney who overrode 
hounds; but there are traditions to keep up, and 
the artist always loves It. So far we have not 
considered the artist sufficiently. Let us give 
him four full pages. One of pretty girls hang- 
ing up mistletoe, one of the squire and his family 
going to church in the snow, one of a broken- 
down coach with highwaymen coming over the 
hill, and one of the postman bringing loads and 
loads of parcels. You have all Christmas In those 
four pictures. But there Is room for another page 
— let It be a coloured page of half a dozen 
sketches, the period and the lettering very early 
English. "Ye Baron de Marchebankes calleth for 
hys varlet." "Ye varlet cometh righte has- 



A Christmas Number 69 

tilie " You know the delightful kind of thing. 

I confess that this is the sort of Christmas 
number which I love. You may say that you have 
seen it all before; I say that that is why I love 
It. The best of Christmas is that it reminds us 
of other Christmases; it should be the boast of 
Christmas numbers that they remind us of other 
Christmas numbers. 

But though I doubt if I shall get quite what I 
want from any one number this year, yet there 
will surely be enough in all the numbers to bring 
Christmas very pleasantly before the eyes. In 
a dull November one likes to be reminded that 
Christmas is coming. It is perhaps as well that 
the demands of the colonies give us our Christmas 
numbers so early. At the same time it is difficult 
to see why New Zealand wants a Christmas num- 
ber at all. As I glance above at the plan of my 
model paper I feel more than ever how adorable 
it would be — ^but not, oh not with the thermom- 
eter at a hundred in the shade. 



No Flowers by Request. 

IF a statement Is untrue, It is not the more 
respectable because It has been said In Latin. 
We owe the war, directly, no doubt, to the Kaiser, 
but indirectly to the Roman Idiot who said, ^'Sl 
vis pacem, para helium.'^ Having mislaid my 
Dictionary of Quotations I cannot give you his 
name, but I have my money on him as the great- 
est murderer In history. 

Yet there have always been people who would 
quote this classical He as If It were at least as 
authoritative as anything said in the Sermon on 
the Mount. It was said a long time ago, and in a 
strange language — that was enough for them. In 
the same way they will say, ^'De mortuis nil nisi 
bonumJ^ But I warn them solemnly that it will 
take a good deal more than this to stop me from 
saying what I want to say about the recently ex- 
pired month of February. 

I have waited purposely until February was 
dead. Cynics may say that this was only wis- 
dom, in that a damnatory notice from me might 
have inspired that unhappy month to an unusu- 

70 



No Flowers by Request 71 

ally brilliant run, out of sheer wilfulness. I pre- 
fer to think that it was good manners which for- 
bade me to be disrespectful to her very face. It 
is bad manners to speak the truth to the living, 
but February is dead. De mortuis nil nisi Veritas. 

The truth about poor February is that she 
is the worst month of the year, But let us be 
fair to her. She has never had a chance. We 
cannot say to her, "Look upon this picture and 
on this. This you might have been ; this you are." 
There is no "might have been" for her, no ideal 
February. The perfect June we can imagine for 
ourselves. Personally I do not mind how hot it 
be, but there must be plenty of strawberries. The 
perfect April — ah, one dare not think of the per- 
fect April. That can only happen in the next 
world. Yet April may always be striving for it, 
though she never reach it. But the perfect Feb- 
ruary — what Is It? I know not. Let us pity 
February, then, even while we blame her. 

For February comes just when we are sick of 
winter, and therefore she may not be wintry. 
Wishing to do her best, she ventures her spring 
costume, crocus and primrose and daffodil days; 
days when the first faint perfume of mint Is blown 
down the breezes, and one begins to wonder how 
the lambs are shaping. Is that the ideal Febru- 



72 Not That It Matters 

ary? Ah no! For we cannot be deceived. We 
know that spring is not here; that March is to 
come with its frosts and perchance its snows, a 
worse March for the milder February, a plunge 
back into the winter which poor February tried 
to flatter us was over. 

Such a February is a murderer — an accessory 
to the murders of March. She lays the ground- 
bait for the victims. Out pop the stupid little 
flowers, eager to be deceived (one could forgive 
the annuals, but the perennials ought to know 
better by now) , and down comes March, a roar- 
ing lion, to gobble them up. 

And how much lost fruit do we not owe to 
February ! One feels — a layman like myself feels 
— that it should be enough to have a strawberry- 
bed, a peach-tree, a fig-tree. If these are not 
enough, then the addition of a gardener should 
make the thing a certainty. Yet how often will 
not a gardener refer one back to February as the 
real culprit. The tree blossomed too early; the 
late frosts killed it; in the annoyance of the 
moment one may reproach the gardener for al- 
lowing it to blossom so prematurely, but one can- 
not absolve February of all blame. 

It is no good, then, for February to try to be 
spring! no hope for her to please us by pro- 



No Flowers by Request 73 

longing winter. What Is left to her? She cannot 
even give us the pleasure of the hair-shirt. Did 
April follow her, she could make the joys of that 
wonderful month even keener for us by the con- 
trast, but — she is followed by March. What can 
one do with March? One does not wear a hair- 
shirt merely to enjoy the pleasure of following it 
by one sHghtly less hairy. 

Well, we may agree that February is no good. 
*'Oh, to be out of England now that February's 
here," Is what Browning should have said. One 
has no use for her In this country. Pope Gregory, 
or whoever it was that arranged the calendar, 
must have had influential relations In England 
who urged on him the need for making Febru- 
ary the shortest month of the year. Let us be 
grateful to His Holiness that he was so per- 
suaded. He was a little obstinate about Leap 
Year; ?. more Imaginative pontiff would have 
given the extra day to April; but he was amen- 
able enough for a man who only had his relations* 
word for It. Every first of March I raise my 
glass to Gregory. Even as a boy I used to drink 
one of his powders to him at about this time of 
the year. 

February fill-dyke! Well, that's all that can 
be said for It. 



The Unfairness of Things. 

THE most interesting column In any paper 
(always excepting those which I write my- 
self) is that entitled "The World's Press/' 
wherein one may observe the world as it appears 
to a press of which one has for the most part 
never heard. It is in this column that I have just 
made the acquaintance of The Shoe Manufac- 
turers^ Monthly^ the journal to which the elect 
turn eagerly upon each new moon. (Its one-time 
rival, The Footwear Fortnightly, has, I am told, 
quite lost its following.) The hon mot of the 
current number of The S.M.M, is a note to the 
effect that Kaffirs have a special fondness for 
boots which make a noise. I quote this simply 
as an excuse for referring to the old problem of 
the squeaky boots and the squeaky collar; the 
problem, In fact, of the unfairness of things. 

The majors and clubmen who assist their coun- 
try with columns of advice on clothes have often 
tried to explain why a collar squeaks, but have 
never done so to the satisfaction of any man of 
intelligence. They say that the collar Is too large 

74 



The Unfairness of Things 75 

or twc> small, too dirty or too clean. They say 
that if you have your collars made for you (like a 
gentleman) you will be all right, but that if you 
buy the cheap, ready-made article, what can you 
expect? They say that a little soap on the out- 
side of the shirt, or a little something on the inside 
of something else, that this, that, and the other 
will abate the nuisance. They are quite wrong. 

The simple truth, and everybody knows it 
really, is that collars squeak for some people and 
not for others. A squeaky collar round the neck 
of a man is a comment, not upon the collar, but 
upon the man. That man is unlucky. Things are 
against him. Nature may have done all for him 
that she could, have given him a handsome out- 
side and a noble inside, but the world of inanimate 
objects is against him. 

We all know the man whom children or dogs 
love instinctively. It is a rare gift to be able to 
inspire this affection. The Fates have been kind 
to him. But to inspire the affection of inanimate 
things is something greater. The man to whom 
a collar or a window sash takes instinctively is a 
man who may truly be said to have luck on his 
side. 

Consider him for a moment. His collar never 
squeaks; his clothes take a dehght in fitting him. 



76 Not That It Matters 

At a dinner-party he walks as by instinct straight 
to his seat, what time you and I are dragging our 
partners round and round the table in search of 
our cards. The windows of taxicabs open to him 
easily. When he travels by train his luggage 
works its way to the front of the van and is the 
first to jump out at Paddington. String hastens 
to undo itself when he approaches ; he is the only 
man who can make a decent impression with 
sealing-wax. If he is asked by the hostess in a 
crowded drawing-room to ring the bell, that bell 
comes out from behind the sofa where it hid from 
us and places itself in a convenient spot before 
his eyes. Asparagus stiffens itself at sight of him, 
macaroni winds itself round his fork. 

You will observe that I am not describing just 
the ordinary lucky man. He may lose thousands 
on the Stock Exchange; he may be jilted; when- 
ever he goes to the Oval to see Hobbs, Hobbs 
may be out first ball; he may invariably get mixed 
up in railway accidents. That Is a kind of ill-luck 
which one can bear, not indeed without grumbling, 
but without rancour. The man who is unlucky to 
experience these things at least has the consolation 
of other people's sympathy; but the man who is 
the butt of inanimate things has no one's sym- 
pathy. We may be on a motor bus which over- 



The Unfairness of Things 77 

turns and nobody will say that it is our fault, but 
if our collar deliberately and maliciously squeaks, 
everybody will say that we ought to buy better 
collars; if our dinner cards hide from us, or the 
string of our parcel works itself into knots, we 
are called clumsy; our asparagus and macaroni 
give us a reputation for bad manners; our luggage 
gets us a name for dilatoriness. 

I think we, we others, have a right to complain. 
However lucky we may be in other ways, if we 
have not this luck of inanimate things we have a 
right to complain. It is pleasant, I admit, to win 
£500 on the Stock Exchange by a stroke of sheer 
good fortune, but even in the blue of this there is 
a cloud, for the next £500 that we win by a stroke 
of shrewd business will certainly be put down to 
luck. Luck is given the credit of all our successes, 
but the other man is given the credit of all his 
luck. That is why we have a right to complain. 

I do not know why things should conspire 
against a man. Perhaps there is some justice in it. 
It is possible — nay, probable — ^that the man whom 
things love is hated by animals and children — 
even by his fellow-men. Certainly he is hated by 
me. Indeed, the more I think of him, the more 
I see that he is not a nice man in any way. The 
gods have neglected him ; he has no good qualities. 



78 Not That It Matters 

He is a worm. No wonder, then, that this small 
compensation is doled out to him — the gift of get- 
ting on with inanimate things. This gives him 
(with the unthinking) a certain reputation for 
readiness and dexterity. If ever you meet a man 
with such a reputation, you will know what he 
really is. 

Circumstances connected with the hour at which 
I rose this morning ordained that I should write 
this article in a dressing-gown. I shall now put on 
a collar. I hope it will squeak. 



Daffodils. 

THE confession-book, I suppose, Tias dis- 
appeared. It is twenty years since I have 
seen one. As a boy I told some inquisitive owner 
what was my favourite food (porridge, I fancy), 
my favourite hero in real life and in fiction, my 
favourite virtue in woman, and so forth. I was a 
boy, and it didn't really matter what were my 
likes and dislikes then, for I was bound to out- 
grow them. But Heaven helpt the journalist of 
those days who had to sign his name to opinions 
so definite I For when a writer has said In print 
(as I am going to say directly) that the daffodil 
is his favourite flower, simply "because, looking 
round his room for inspiration, he has seen a bowl 
of daffodils on his table and thought it beautiful, 
It would be hard on him If some confesslon-album- 
owner were to expose him in the following Issue 
as already committed on oath to the violet. Im- 
aginative art would become Impossible. 

Fortunately I have no commitments, and I may 
affirm that the daffodil is, and always has been, 
my favourite flower. Many people will put their 

79 



8o Not That It Matters 

money on the rose, but it Is impossible that the 
rose can give them the pleasure which the daffodil 
gives them, just as it is impossible that a thousand 
pounds can give Rockefeller the pleasure which it 
gives you or me. For the daffodil comes, not only 
before the swallow comes — which is a matter of 
indifference, as nobody thinks any the worse of the 
swallow in consequence — ^but before all the many 
flowers of summer; It comes on the heels of a 
flowerless winter. Whereby it is as superior to 
the rose as an oasis in the Sahara is to champagne 
at a wedding. 

Yes, a favourite flower must be a spring flower 
— there is no doubt about that. You have your 
choice, then, of the daffodil, the violet, the prim- 
rose, and the crocus. The bluebell comes too 
late, the cowslip Is but an indifferent primrose; 
camellas and anemones and all the others which 
occur to you come into a different class. Well, 
then, will you choose the violet or the crocus? Or 
will you follow the legendary Disraeli and have 
primroses on your statue? 

I write as one who spends most of his life in 
London, and for me the violet, the primrose, and 
the crocus are lacking in the same necessary 
quality — ^they pick badly. My favourite flower 
must adorn my house; to show itself off to the 



Dafifodils 8i 

best advantage within doors it must have a long 
stalk. A crocus, least of all, is a flower to be 
plucked. I admit its charm as the first hint of 
spring that is vouchsafed to us in the parks, but 
I want it nearer home than that. You cannot 
pick a crocus and put it in water ; nor can you be 
so cruel as to spoil the primrose and the violet by 
taking them from their natural setting; but the 
daffodil cries aloud to be picked. It is what it is 
waiting for. 

**Long stalks, please." Who, being commanded 
by his lady to bring in flowers for the house, has 
not received this warning? And was there ever a 
stalk to equal the daffodil's for length and firm- 
ness and beauty? Other flowers must have foliage 
to set them off, but daffodils can stand by them- 
selves in a bowl, and their green and yellow dress 
brings all spring into the room. A house with 
daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or no the 
sun be shining outside. Daffodils in a green bowl 
— and let it snow if it will. 

Wordsworth wrote a poem about daffodils. He 
wrote poems about most flowers. If a plant would 
be unique it must be one which had never inspired 
him to song. But he did not write about daffodils 
In a bowl. The daffodils which I celebrate are 
stationary; Wordsworth's lived on. the banks of 



82 Not That It Matters 

Ullswater, and fluttered and tossed their heads 
and danced in the breeze. He hints that in their 
company even he might have been jocose — a ter- 
rifying thought, which makes me happier to have 
mine safely indoors. When he first saw them 
there (so he says) he gazed and gazed and little 
thought what wealth the show to him had brought. 
Strictly speaking, it hadn't brought him In any- 
thing at the moment, but he must have known 
from his previous experiences with the daisy and 
the celandine that it was good for a certain 
amount. 

A simple daffodil to him 
Was so much matter for a slim 
Volume at two and four. 

You may say, of course, that I am in no better 
case, but then I have never reproached other 
people (as he did) for thinking of a primrose 
merely as a primrose. 

But whether you prefer them my way or 
Wordsworth's — Indoors or outdoors — will make 
no difference In this further matter to which 
finally I call your attention. Was there ever a 
more beautiful name in the world than daffodil? 
Say it over to yourself, and then say "agapanthus" 
or "chrysanthemum," or anything else you please, 
and tell me if the daffodils do not have it. 



Dafifodils 83 



Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, 
Let them live upon their praises; 
Long as there's a sun that sets, 
Primroses will have their glory; 
Long as there are violets 
They will have a place in story; 
But for flowers my bowls to fill, 
Give me just the daffodil. 

As Wordsworth ought to have said. 



A Household Book. 

ONCE on a time I discovered Samuel Butler; 
not the other two, but the one who wrote 
The Way of All Flesh, the second-best novel in 
the English language. I say the second-best, so 
that, if you remind me of Tom Jones or The 
Mayor of Casterhridge or any other that you 
fancy, I can say that, of course, that one is the 
best. Well, I discovered him, just as Voltaire 
discovered Habakkuk, or your little boy discov- 
ered Shakespeare the other day, and I committed 
my discovery to the world in two glowing articles. 
Not unnaturally the world remained unmoved. It 
knew all about Samuel Butler. 

Last week I discovered a Frenchman, Claude 
Tillier, who wrote in the early part of last century 
a book called Mon Oncle Benjamin^ which may be 
freely translated My Uncle Benjamin, (I read it 
in the translation.) Eager as I am to be lyrical 
about it, I shall refrain. I think that I am prob- 
ably safer with Tillier than with Butler, but I dare 
not risk it. The thought of your scorn at my 
previous ignorance of the world-famous Tillier, 

S4 



A Household Book 85 

your amused contempt because I have only just 
succeeded in borrowing the classic upon which you 
were brought up, this is too much for me. Let 
us say no more about it. Claude Tillier — who 
has not heard of Claude Tillier? Mon Oncle 
Benjamin — who has not read it, in French or (as 
I did) in American? Let us pass on to another 
book. 

For I am going to speak of another discovery; 
of a book which should be a classic, but is not; 
of a book of which nobody has heard unless 
through me. It was published some twelve years 
ago, the last-published book of a well-known 
writer. When I tell you his name you will say, 
*'0h yes! I love his books!" and you will men- 
tion So-and'So, and its equally famous sequel 
Such-and-Such. But when I ask you if you have 
read my book, you will profess surprise, and say 
that you have never heard of it. "Is it as good 
as So-and'So and Such-and-Suchf^ you will ask, 
hardly believing that this could be possible. 
"Much better," I shall reply — and there, if these 
things were arranged properly, would be another 
ten per cent, in my pocket. But, believe me, I 
shall be quite content with your gratitude. 

Well, the writer of my book is Kenneth Gra- 
hame. You have heard of him? Good, I thought 



86 Not That It Matters 

so. The books you have read are The Golden 
Ag-e and Dream Days, Am I not right ? Thank 
you. But the book you have not read — my book 
— Is The Wind in the Willows. Am I not right 
again? Ah, I was afraid so. 

The reason why I knew you had not read it is 
the reason why I call it "my" book. For the last 
ten or twelve years I have been recommending it. 
Usually I speak about it at my first meeting with a 
stranger. It Is my opening remark, just as yours 
is something futile about the weather. If I don't 
^tt it in at the beginning, I squeeze it in at the 
end. The stranger has got to have it some time. 
Should I ever nnd myself in the dock, and one 
never knows, my answer to the question whether 
I had anything to say would be, *'Well, my lord, 
if I might just recommend a book to the jury 
before leaving." Mr. Justice Darling would 
probably pretend that he had read it, but he 
wouldn't deceive me. 

For one cannot recommend a book to all the 
hundreds of people whom one has met in ten years 
without discovering whether it is well known or 
not. It is the amazing truth that none of those 
hundreds had heard of The Wind in the Willows 
until I told them about it. Some of them had 
never heard of Kenneth Grahame; well, one did 



A Household Book 87 

not have to meet them again, and it takes all 
sorts to make a world. But most of them were 
in your position — great admirers of the author 
and his two earlier famous books, but ignorant 
thereafter. I had their promise before they left 
me, and waited confidently for their gratitude. 
No doubt they also spread the good news in their 
turn, and it is just possible that it reached you 
in this way, but it was to me, none the less, that 
your thanks were due. For instance, you may 
have noticed a couple of casual references to it, 
as if it were a classic known to all, in a famous 
novel published last year. It was I who intro- 
duced that novehst to it six months before. In- 
deed, I feel sometimes that it was I who wrote 
The Wind In the Willows, and recommended it to 
Kenneth Grahame . . . but perhaps I am wrong 
here, for I have not the pleasure of his acquaint- 
ance. Nor, as I have already lamented, am I 
financially interested in its sale, an explanation 
which suspicious strangers require from me some- 
times. 

I shall not describe the book, for no description 
would help it. But I shall just say this: that it 
is what I call a Household Book. By a House- 
hold Book I mean a book which everybody in the 
household loves and quotes continually ever after- 



88 Not That It Matters 

wards; a book which is read aloud to every new 
guest, and is regarded as the touchstone of his 
worth. But it is a book which makes you feel 
that, though everybody in the house loves it, it is 
only you who really appreciate it at its true value, 
and that the others are scarcely worthy of it. It is 
obvious, you persuade yourself, that the author 
was thinking of you when he wrote it. "I hope 
this will please Jones," were his final words, as 
he laid down his pen. 

Well, of course, you will order the book at 
once. But I must give you one word of warning. 
When you sit down to it, don't be so ridiculous as 
to suppose that you are sitting in judgment on 
my taste, still less on the genius of Kenneth Gra- 
hame. You are merely sitting in judgment on 
yourself. . . . You may be worthy; I do not 
know. But it is you who are on trial. 



Lunch. 

FOOD IS a subject of conversation more 
spiritually refreshing even than the weather, 
for the number of possible remarks about the 
weather is limited, whereas of food you can talk 
on and on and on. Moreover, no heat of con- 
troversy is induced by mention of the atmospheric 
conditions (seeing that we are all agreed as to 
what is a good day and what is a bad one), and 
where there can be no controversy there can be 
no intimacy in agreement. But tastes in food 
differ so sharply (as has been well said in Latin 
and, I believe, also in French) that a pronounced 
agreement in them is of all bonds of union the 
most intimate. Thus, if a man hates tapioca 
pudding he is a good fellow and my friend. 

To each his favourite meal. But if I say that 
lunch is mine I do not mean that I should like 
lunch for breakfast, dinner, and tea; I do not 
mean that of the four meals (or five, counting 
supper) lunch is the one which I most enjoy — at 
which I do myself most complete justice. This 
is so far from being true that I frequently miss 

89 



90 Not That It Matters 

lunch altogether . . . the exigencies of the jour- 
nalistic profession. To-day, for instance, I shall 
probably miss it. No; what I mean is that lunch 
is the meal which in the abstract appeals to me 
most because of its catholicity. 

We breakfast and dine at home, or at other 
people's homes, but we give 'ourselves up to Lon- 
don for lunch, and London has provided an amaz- 
ing variety for us. We can have six courses and 
a bottle of champagne, with a view of the river, 
or one poached egg and a box of dominoes, with 
a view of the skylights; we can sit or we can 
stand, and without doubt we could, if we wished, 
recline in the Roman fashion; we can spend two 
hours or five minutes at it; we can have something 
different every day of the week, or cling perma- 
nently (as I know one man to do) to a chop and 
chips^ — and what you do with the chips I have 
never discovered, for they combine so little of 
nourishment with so much of inconvenience that 
Nature can never have meant them for provender. 
Perhaps as counters. . . . But I am wandering 
from my theme. 

There is this of romance about lunch, that one 
can imagine great adventures with stockbrokers, 
actor-managers, publishers, and other demigods 
to have had their birth at the luncheon table. If 



Lunch 91 

It IS a question of "bulling" margarine or "bear- 
ing" boot-polish, if the name for the new play is 
still unsettled, if there is some fdea of an Ameri- 
can edition — whatever the emergency, the final 
word on the subject is always the same, "Come 
and have lunch with me, and we'll talk it over"; 
and when the waiter has taken your hat and coat, 
and you have looked diffidently at the menu, and 
in reply to your host's question, "What will you 
drink?" have made the only possible reply, "Oh, 
anything that you're drinking" (thus showing him 
that you don't insist on a bottle to yourself) — 
then you settle down to business, and the history 
of England is enlarged by who can say how many 
pages. 

And not only does one inaugurate business 
matters at lunch, but one also renews old friend- 
ships. Who has not had said to him in the Strand, 
"Hallo, old fellow, I haven't seen you for ages; 
you must come and lunch with me one day" ? And 
who has not answered, "Rather! I should love 
to," and passed on with a glow at the heart which 
has not died out until the next day, when the inci- 
dent is forgotten? An invitation to dinner is 
formal, to tea unnecessary, to breakfast impossi- 
ble, but there is a casualness, very friendly and 
pleasant, about invitations to lunch which make 



92 Not That It Matters 

them complete in themselves, and in no way de- 
pendent on any lunch which may or may not 
follow. 

Without having exhausted the subject of lunch 
in London (and I should like to say that it is now 
certain that I shall not have time to partake 
to-day) , let us consider for a moment lunch in the 
country. I do not mean lunch in the open air, for 
it is obvious that there is no meal so heavenly as 
lunch thus eaten, and in a short article like this 
I have no time in which to dwell upon the obvious. 
I mean lunch at a country house. Now, the most 
pleasant feature of lunch at a country house is 
this — that you may sit next to whomsoever you 
please. At dinner she may be entrusted to quite 
the wrong man; at breakfast you are faced with 
the problem of being neither too early for her nor 
yet too late for a seat beside her; at tea people 
have a habit of taking your chair at the moment 
when a simple act of courtesy has drawn you from, 
it in search of bread and butter; but at lunch you 
follow her in and there you are — fixed. 

But there is a place, neither London nor the 
country, which brings out more than any other 
place all that is pleasant in lunch. It was really 
the recent experience of this which set me writing 
about lunch. Lunch in the train! It should be 



Lunch 93 

the "second meal" — about 1.30 — ^because then 
you are really some distance from London and 
are hungry. The panorama flashes by outside, 
nearer and nearer comes the beautiful West; you 
cross rivers and hurry by little villages, you pass 
slowly and reverently through strange old towns 
. . . and, inside, the waiter leaves the potatoes 
n^ext to you and slips away. 

Well, it is his own risk. Here goes. . . . 
What I say is that, if a man really likes potatoes, 
he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. 



The Friend of Man. 

WHEN swords went out of fashion, walking- 
sticks, I suppose, came Into fashion. The 
present custom has its advantages. Even In his 
busiest day the hero's sword must have returned 
at times to Its scabbard, and what would he do 
then with nothing in his right hand? But our 
walking-sticks have no scabbards. We grasp 
them always, ready at any moment to summon a 
cab, to point out a view, or to dig an enemy in 
the stomach. Meanwhile we slash the air in 
defiance of the world. 

My first stick was a malacca, silver at the collar 
and polished horn as to the handle. For weeks 
it looked beseechingly at me from a shop window, 
until a lucky birthday tip sent me in after It. We 
went back to school together that afternoon, and 
if anything can lighten the cloud which hangs over 
the last day of holidays. It is the glory of some 
such stick as mine. Of course It was too beautiful 
to live long; yet its death became it. I had left 
many a parental umbrella in the train unhonoured 
and unsung. My malacca was mislaid In an hotel 

94 



The Friend of Man 95 

In Norway. And even now when the blinds are 
drawn and we pull up our chairs closer round the 
wood fire, what time travellers tell to awestruck 
stay-at-homes tales of adventure In distant lands, 
even now If by a lucky chance Norway Is men- 
tioned, I tap the logs carelessly with the poker 
and drawl, ''I suppose you didn't happen to stay 
at Vossvangen? I left a malacca cane there once. 
Rather a good one too/' So that there Is an 
Impression among my friends that there is hardly 
a town In Europe but has had Its legacy from me. 
And this I owe to my stick. 

My last Is of ebony. Ivory-topped. Even 
though I should spend another fortnight abroad 
I could not take this stick with me. It Is not a 
stick for the country; Its heart Is In Piccadilly. 
Perhaps It might thrive In Paris If It could stand 
the sea voyage. But no, I cannot see It crossing 
the Channel; In a cap I am no companion for It. 
Could I step on to the boat In a silk hat and then 
retire below — but I am always unwell below, and 
that would not suit Its dignity. It stands now In 
a corner of my room crying aloud to be taken to 
the opera. I used to dislike men who took canes 
to Covent Garden, but I see now how It must 
have been with them. An ebony stick topped with 
ivory has to be humoured. Already I am con- 



96 Not That It Matters 

slderlng a silk-lined cape, and it is settled that my 
gloves are to have black stitchings. 

Such is my last stick, for it was given to me 
this very morning. At my first sight of it I 
thought that it might replace the common one 
which I lost in an Easter train. That was silly 
of me. I must have a stick of less gentle birth 
which is not afraid to be seen with a soft hat. It 
must be a stick which I can drop, or on occasion 
kick; one with which I can slash dandelions; one 
for v/hich, when ultimately I leave it in a train, 
conscience does not drag me to Scotland Yard. 
In short, a companionable stick for a day's jour- 
ney; a country stick. 

The ideal country stick will never be found. 
It must be thick enough to stand much rough 
usage of a sort which I will explain presently, and 
yet it must be thin so that it makes a pleasant 
whistling sound through the air. Its handle must 
be curved so that it can pull down the spray of 
blossom of which you are in need, or pull up the 
luncheon basket which you want even more badly, 
and yet it must be straight so that you can drive 
an old golf ball with it. It must be unadorned, 
so that it shall lack ostentation, and yet it must 
have a band, so that when you throw stones at it 
you can count two if you hit the silver. You begin 



The Friend of Man 97 

to see how difficult It Is to achieve the perfect 
stick. 

Well, each one of us must let go those prop- 
erties which his own stick can do best without. 
For myself I insist on this — my stick must be good 
for hitting and good to hit with. A stick, we are 
agreed, is something to have in the hand when 
walking. But there are times when we sit down; 
and if our journey shall have taken us to the 
beach, our stick must at once be propped In the 
sand while from a suitable distance we throw 
stones at it. However beautiful the sea, its 
beauty can only be appreciated properly In this 
fashion. Scenery must not be taken at a gulp; 
we must absorb it unconsciously. With the mind 
gently exercised as to whether we scored a two 
on the band or a one just below it, and with the 
muscles of the arm at stretch, we are In a state 
ideally receptive of beauty. 

And, for my other essential of a country stick, 
it must be possible to grasp it by the wrong end 
and hit a ball with It. So It must have no ferrule, 
and the handle must be heavy and straight. In 
this way was golf born; Its creator roamed the 
fields after his picnic lunch, knocking along the 
cork from his bottle. At first he took seventy- 
nine from the gate in one field to the oak tree in 



98 Not That It Matters 

the next; afterwards fifty-four. Then suddenly 
he saw the game. We cannot say that he was no 
lover of Nature. The desire to knock a ball 
about, to play silly games with a stick, comes upon 
a man most keenly when he Is happy; let It be 
ascribed that he Is happy to the streams and the 
hedges and the sunlight through the trees. And 
so let my stick have a handle heavy and straight, 
and let there be no ferrule on the end. Be sure 
that I have an old golf ball in my pocket. 

In London one is not so particular. Chiefly we 
want a stick for leaning on when we are talking 
to an acquaintance suddenly met. After the initial 
"Hulloa I" and the discovery that we have nothing 
else of importance to say, the situation Is distinctly 
eased by the remembrance of our stick. It gives 
us a support moral and physical, such as is sup- 
plied In a drawing-room by a cigarette. For this 
purpose size and shape are immaterial. Yet this 
much is essential — it must not be too slippery, or 
in our nervousness we may drop it altogether. 
My ebony stick with the polished Ivory top 

But I have already decided that my ebony stick 
is out of place with the everyday hat. It stands 
in its corner waiting for the opera season. I must 
get another stick for rough work. 



The Diary Habit. 

A NEWSPAPER has been lamenting the decay 
of the diary-keeping habit, with the natural 
result that several correspondents have written to 
say that they have kept diaries ail their lives. 
No doubt all these diaries now contain the entry, 

*'Wrote to the Daily to deny the assertion 

that the diary-keeping habit is on the wane." Of 
such little things are diaries made. 

I suppose this is the reason why diaries are so 
rarely kept nowadays — that nothing ever happens 
to anybody. A diary would be worth writing up 
if it could be written like this : — 

Monday. — "Another exciting day. Shot a 
couple of hooligans on my way to business and 
was forced to give my card to the police. On 
arriving at the office was surprised to find the 
building on fire, but was just in time to rescue the 
confidential treaty between England and Switzer- 
land. Had this been discovered by the public, war 
would infaUibly have resulted. Went out to 
lunch and saw a runaway elephant in the Strand. 
Thought little of It at the time, but mentioned It 

99 



100 Not That It Matters 

to my wife in the evening. She agreed that it 
was worth recording." 

Tuesday. — ^'Letter from solicitor Informing me 
that I have come Into £1,000,000 through the 
will of an Australian gold-digger named Tom- 
kins. On referring to my diary I find that I saved 
his life two years ago by plunging Into the Ser- 
pentine. This Is very gratifying. Was late at 
the office as I had to look in at the Palace on the 
way, in order to get knighted, but managed to get 
a good deal of work done before I was inter- 
rupted by a madman with a razor, who demanded 
£100. Shot him after a desperate struggle. Tea 

at an A B C, where I met the Duke of . 

Fell Into the Thames on my way home, but swam 
ashore without difficulty." 

Alas ! we cannot do this. Our diaries are very 
prosaic, very dull indeed. They read like this :— 

Monday. — "Felt Inclined to stay In bed this 
morning and send an excuse to the office, but was 
all right after a bath and breakfast. Worked 
till 1.30 and had lunch. Afterwards worked till 
five, and had my hair cut on the way home. After 
dinner read A Man's Passion, by Theodora Pop- 
good. Rotten. Went to bed at eleven." 

Tuesday. — "Had a letter from Jane. Did 
some good work in the morning, and at lunch met 



The Diary Habit loi 

Henry, who asked me to play golf with him on 
Saturday. Told him I was playing with Peter, 
but said I would hke a game with him on the 
Saturday after. However, it turned out he was 
playing with William then, so we couldn't fix any- 
thing up. Bought a pair of shoes on my way 
home, but think they will be too tight. The man 
says, though, that they will stretch.'* 

Wednesday. — "Played dominoes at lunch and 
won fivepence." 

If this sort of diary is now falling into decay, 
the world is not losing much. But at least it is 
a harmless pleasure to some to enter up their 
day's doings each evening, and in years to come 
it may just possibly be of interest to the diarist to 
know that it was on Monday, 27th April, that he 
had his hair cut. Again, if in the future any ques- 
tion arose as to the exact date of Henry's decease, 
we should find in this diary proof that anyhow 
he was alive as late as Tuesday, 28th April. That 
might, though it probably won't, be of great im- 
portance. But there is another sort of diary 
which can never be of any importance at all. I 
make no apology for giving a third selection of 
extracts. 

Monday, — "Rose at nine and came down to 
find a letter from Mary. How little we know 



102 Not That It Matters 

our true friends ! Beneath the mask of outward 
affection there may lurk unknown to us the ser- 
pent's tooth of jealousy. Mary writes that she 
can make nothing for my stall at the bazaar as 
she has her own stall to provide for. Ate my 
breakfast mechanically, my thoughts being far 
away. What, after all, is life? Meditated deeply 
on the inner cosmos till lunch-time. Afterwards 
I lay down for an hour and composed my mind. 
I was angry this morning with Mary. Ah, how 
petty! Shall I never be free from the bonds of 
my own nature? Is the better self within me 
never to rise to the sublime heights of selflessness 
of which it is capable? Rose at four and wrote 
to Mary, forgiving her. This has been a wonder- 
ful day for the spirit." 

Yes; I suspect that a good many diaries record 
adventures of the mind and soul for lack of stir- 
ring adventures to the body. If they cannot say, 
"Attacked by a lion in Bond Street to-day," they 
can at least say, "Attacked by doubt in St. Paul's 
Cathedral." Most people will prefer, in the ab- 
sence of the lion, to say nothing, or nothing more 
important than "Attacl^ed by the hairdresser with 
a hard brush" ; but there are others who must get 
pen to paper somehow, and who find that only in 



The Diary Habit 103 

regard to their emotions have they anything 
unique to say. 

But, of course, there is ever within the breasts 
of all diarists the hope that their diaries may 
some day be revealed to the world. They may be 
discovered by some future generation, amazed at 
the simple doings of the twentieth century, or 
their publication may be demanded by the next 
generation, eager to know the inner life of the 
great man just dead. Best of all, they may be 
made pubHc by the writers themselves in their 
autobiographies. 

Yes ; the diarist must always have his eye on a 
possible autobiography. "I remember," he will 
write in that great work, having forgotten all 
about it, "I distinctly remember" — and here he 
will refer to his diary — ^'meetingX. at lunch one 
Sunday and saying to him. . . ." 

What he said will not be of much importance, 
but it will show you what a wonderful memory 
the distinguished author retains in his old age. 



Midsummer Day. 

THERE is magic in the woods on Midsummer 
Day — so people tell me. Titania conducts 
her revels. Let others attend her court; for 
myself I will beg to be excused. I have no heart 
for revelling on Midsummer Day. On any other 
festival I will be as jocund as you please, but on 
the longest day of the year I am overburdened 
by the thought that from this moment the evenings 
are beginning to draw in. We are on the way to 
winter. 

It is on Midsummer Day, or thereabouts, that 
the cuckoo changes his tune, knowing well that 
the best days are over and that in a little while 
it will be time for him to fly away. I should like 
this to be a learned article on "The Habits of 
the Cuckoo," and yet, if it were, I doubt if I 
should love him at the end of it. It is best to 
know only the one thing of him, that he lays his 
eggs in another bird's nest — a friendly idea — and 
beyond that to take him as we find him. And 
we find that his only habit which matters is the 
delightful one of saying "Cuckoo." 

104 



Midsummer Day 105 

The nightingale is the bird of melancholy, the 
thrush sings a disturbing song of the good times 
to come, the blackbird whistles a fine, cool note 
which goes best with a February morning, and 
the skylark trills his way to a heaven far out of 
the reach of men; and what the lesser white- 
throat says I have never rightly understood. But 
the cuckoo is the bird of present joys; he keeps us 
company on the lawns of summer, he sings under 
a summer sun in a wonderful new world of blue 
and green. I think only happy people hear him. 
He is always about when one is doing pleasant 
things. He never sings when the sun hides behind 
banks of clouds, or if he does, it is softly to him- 
self so that he may not lose the note. Then 
"Cuckoo!" he says aloud, and you may be sure 
that everything is warm and bright again. 

But now he is leaving us. Where he goes I 
know not, but I think of him vaguely as at 
Mozambique, a paradise for all good birds who 
like their days long. If geography were properly 
taught at schools, I should know where Mozam- 
bique was, and what sort of people live there. 
But it may be that, with all these cuckoos cuckoo- 
ing and swallows swallowing from July to April, 
the country is so full of immigrants that there is 
no room for a stable population. It may also be, 



io6 Not That It Matters 

of course, that Mozambique is not the place I am 
thinking of; yet it has a birdish sound. 

The year is arranged badly. If Mr. Willett 
were alive he would do something about it. Why 
should the days begin to get shorter at the mo- 
ment when summer is fully arrived? Why should 
It be possible for the vicar to say that the evenings 
are drawing in, when one is still having straw- 
berries for tea? Sometimes I think that if June 
were called August, and April June, these things 
would be easier to bear. The fact that in what is 
now called August we should be telling each other 
how wonderfully hot it was for October would 
help us to bear the slow approach of winter. On 
a Midsummer Day in such a calendar one would 
revel gladly, and there would be no midsummer 
madness. 

Already the oak trees have taken on an autumn 
look. I am told that this is due to a local irrup- 
tion of caterpillars, and not to the waning of the 
summer, but it has a suspicious air. Probably the 
caterpillars knew. It seems strange now to reflect 
that there was a time when I liked caterpillars; 
when I chased them up suburban streets, and took 
them home to fondle them ; when I knew them all 
by their pretty names, assisted them to become 



Midsummer Day 107 

chrysalises, and watched over them In that unpro- 
tected state as if I had been their mother. Ah, 
how dear were my little charges to me then ! But 
now I class them with mosquitoes and blight and 
harvesters, the pests of the countryside. Why, 
I would let them crawl up my arm in those happy 
days of old, and now I cannot even endure to have 
them dropping gently into my hair. And I should 
not know what to say to a chrysalis. 

There are great and good people who know all 
about solstices and zeniths, and they can tell you 
just why it is that 24th June is so much hotter 
and longer than 24th December — why it is so in 
England, I should say. For I believe (and they 
will correct me if I am wrong) that at the equator 
the days and nights are always of equal length. 
This must make calling almost an impossibility, 
for if one cannot say to one's hostess, "How 
quickly the days are lengthening (or drawing 
in),'' one might as well remain at home. "How 
stationary the days are remaining" might pass on 
a first visit, but the old inhabitants would not like 
it rubbed into them. They feel, I am sure, that 
however saddening a Midsummer Day may be, 
an unchanging year Is much more Intolerable. 
One can imagine the superiority of a resident who 



io8 Not That It Matters 

lived a couple of miles off the equator, and took 
her visitors proudly to the end of the garden 
where the seasons were most mutable. There 
would be no bearing with her. 

In these circumstances I refuse to be depressed. 
I console myself with the thought that if 25th 
June is the beginning of winter, at least there is a 
next summer to which I may look forward. Next 
summer anything may happen. I suppose a 
scientist would be considerably surprised if the 
sun refused to get up one morning, or, having got 
up, declined to go to bed again. It would not 
surprise me. The amazing thing is that Nature 
goes on doing the same things in the same way 
year after year; any sudden little irrelevance on 
her part would be quite understandable. When 
the wise men tell us so confidently that there will 
be an eclipse of the sun in 192 1, invisible at 
Greenwich, do they have no qualms of doubt as 
the day draws near? Do they glance up from 
their whitebait at the appointed hour, just in case 
it is visible after all? Or if they have journeyed 
to Pernambuco, or wherever the best view is to be 
obtained, do they wonder whether . . . perhaps 
. . . and tell each other the night before that, of 
course, they were coming to Pernambuco anyhow, 
to see an aunt? 



Midsummer Day 109 

Perhaps they don't. But for myself I am not 
so certain, and I have hopes that, certainly next 
year, possibly even this year, the days will go on 
lengthening after midsummer is over. 



At the Bookstall. 

1HAVE often longed to be a grocer. To be 
surrounded by so many interesting things — 
sardines, bottled raspberries, biscuits with sugar 
on the top, preserved ginger, hams, brawn under 
glass, everything in fact that makes life worth 
living; at one moment to walk up a ladder in 
search of nutmeg, at the next to dive under a 
counter in pursuit of cinnamon; to serve little girls 
with a ha'porth of pear drops and lordly people 
like you and me with a pint of cherry gin — is not 
this to follow the king of trades? Some day I 
shall open a grocer's shop, and you will find me 
in my spare evenings aproned behind the counter. 
Look out for the currants in the window as you 
come in — I have an idea for something artistic in 
the way of patterns there; but, as you love me, do 
not offer to buy any. We grocers only put the 
currants out for show, and so that we may run our 
fingers through them luxuriously when business is 
slack. I have a good line in shortbreads, madam, 
if I can find the box, but no currants this evening, 
I beg you. 

tio 



At the Bookstall iii 

Yes, to be a grocer is to live well; but, after 
all, it is not to see life. A grocer, in as far as it 
is possible to a man who sells both scented soap 
and pilchards, would become narrow. We do not 
come into contact with the outside world much, 
save through the medium of potted lotster, and 
to sell a man potted lobster is not to have our 
fingers on his pulse. Potted lobster does not de- 
fine a man. All customers are alike to the grocer, 
provided their money is good. I perceive now 
that I was over-hasty in deciding to become a 
grocer. That is rather for one's old age. While 
one is young, and interested in persons rather 
than in things, there is only one profession to 
follow — the profession of bookstall clerk. 

To be behind a bookstall is indeed to see life. 
The fascination of it struck me suddenly as I 
stood in front of a station bookstall last Monday 
and wondered who bought the tie-clips. The 
answer came to me just as I got into my train — 
Ask the man behind the bookstall. He would 
know. Yes, and he would know who bought all 
his papers and books and pamphlets, and to know 
this is to know something about the people in the 
world. You cannot tell a man by the lobster he 
eats, but you can tell something about him by the 
literature he reads. 



112 Not That It Matters 

For instance, I ojiice occupied a carriage on an 
eastern line T^ith, among others, a middle-aged 
woman. As soon as we left Liverpool Street she 
produced a bag of shrimps, grasped each indi- 
vidual in turn firmly by the head and tail, and 
ate him. When she had finished, she emptied 
the ends out of the window, wiped her hands, and 
settled down comfortably to her paper. What 
paper? You'll never guess; I shall have to tell 
you — The Morning Post. Now doesn't that give 
you the woman? The shrimps alone, no; the 
paper alone, no ; but the two together. Conceive 
the holy joy of the bookstall clerk as she and her 
bag of shrimps — yes, he could have told at once 
they were shrimps — approached and asked for 
The Morning Post, 

The day can never be dull to the bookstall 
clerk. I imagine him assigning in his mind the 
right paper to each customer. This man will ask 
for Golfing — wrong, he wants Cage Birds; that 
one over there wants The Motor — ah, well. The 
Auto-Car^ that's near enough. Soon he would 
begin to know the different types ; he would learn 
to distinguish between the patrons of The Dancing 
Times and of The Vote^ The Era and The 
Athenaum. Delightful surprises would over- 
whelm him at intervals; as when — a red-letter 



At the Bookstall 113 

day in all the great stations^ — a gentleman in a 
check waistcoat makes the double purchase of 
Horner^s Penny Stories and The Spectator. On 
those occasions, and they would be very rare, his 
faith in human nature would begin to ooze away, 
until all at once he would tell himself excitedly 
that the man was obviously an escaped criminal 
in disguise, rather overdoing the part. After 
which he would hand over The Winning Post and 
The Animals' Friend to the pursuing detective in 
a sort of holy awe. What a life ! 

But he has other things than papers to sell. 
He knows who buys those little sixpenny books 
of funny stories — a problem which has often 
puzzled us others; he understands by now the 
type of man who wants to read up a few good 
jokes to tell them down at old Robinson's, where 
he is going for the week-end. Our bookstall clerk 
doesn't wait to be asked. As soon as this gentle- 
man approaches, he whips put the book, dusts it, 
and places it before the raconteur. He recog- 
nizes also at a glance the sort of silly ass who is 
always losing his indiarubber umbrella ring. 
Half-way across the station he can see him, and 
he hastens to get a new card out in readiness. 
("Or we would let you have seven for sixpence, 
sir.") And even when one of those subtler char- 



114 Not That It Matters 

acters draws near, about whom it is impossible to 
say immediately whether they require a fountain 
pen with case or the Life and Letters^ reduced to 
3s. 6d., of Major-General Clement Bulger, C.B., 
even then the man behind the bookstall is not 
found wanting. If he is wrong the first time, he 
never fails to recover with his second. "Bulger, 
sir. One of our greatest soldiers." 

I thought of these things last Monday, and 
definitely renounced the idea of becoming a 
grocer; and as I wandered round the bookstall, 
thinking, I came across a little book, sixpence in 
cloth, a shilling in leather, called Proverbs and 
Maxims. It contained some thousands of the best 
thoughts in all languages, such as have guided 
men along the path of truth since the beginning 
of the world, from "What ho, she bumps!" to 
"Ich dien," and more. The thought occurred to 
me that an interesting article might be extracted 
from it, so I bought the book. Unfortunately 
enough I left it in the train before I had time to 
master it. I shall be at the bookstall next Mon- 
day and I shall have to buy another copy. That 
will be all right; you sha'n't miss it. 

But I am wondering now what the bookstall 
clerk will make of me. A man who keeps on 
buying Proverbs and Maxims, Well, as I say, 
they see life. 



"Who's Who." 

1LIKE my novels long. When I had read 
three pages of this one I glanced at the end, 
and found to my delight that there were two 
thousand seven hundred and twenty-five pages 
more to come. I returned with a sigh of pleasure 
to page 4. I was just at the place where Leslie* 
Patrick Abercrombie wins the prize "for laying 
out Prestatyn," some local wrestler, presumably, 
who had challenged the crowd at a country fair. 
After laying him out, Abercrombie returns to his 
books and becomes editor of the Town Planning 
Review. A wonderfully dravv^n character. 

The plot of this oddly named novel is too com- 
plicated to describe at length. It opens with the 
conferment of the C.M.G. on Kuli Khan Abbas 
in 1903, an incident of which the anonymous 
author might have made a good deal more, and 
closes with a brief description of the Rev. Samuel 
Marinus Zwemer's home in New York City; but 
much has happened in the meanwhile. Thousands 
of characters have made their brief appearance 
on the stage, and have been hustled off to make 

"5 



ii6 Not That It Matters 

room for others, but so unerringly are they drawn 
that we feel that we are in the presence of living 
people. Take Colette Willy, for example, who 
comes in on page 2656 at a time when the denoue- 
ment is clearly at hand. The author, who is work- 
ing up to his great scene — the appointment of Dr. 
Norman Wilsmore to the International Commis- 
sion for the Publication of Annual Tables of 
Physical and Chemical Constants — draws her for 
us in a few lightning touches. She is "authoress, 
actress." She has written two little books: 
Dialogue de Betes and La Retraite Sentlmentale. 
That is all. But is it not enough? Has he not 
made Colette Willy live before us? A lesser 
writer m.ight have plunged into elaborate details 
about her telephone number and her permanent 
address, but, like the true artist that he is, our 
author leaves all those things unsaid. For though 
he can be a realist when necessary (as in the case 
of Wallis Budge, to which I shall refer directly) , 
he does not hesitate to trust to the impressionist 
sketch when the situation demands it. 

Wallis Budge is apparently the hero of the tale; 
at any rate, the author devotes most space to him 
— some hundred and twenty lines or so. He does 
not appear until page 341, by which time we are 
on familiar terms with some two or three thou- 



"Who's Who" 117 

sand of the less important characters. It Is typical 
of the writer that, once he has described a char- 
acter to us, has (so to speak) set him on his feet, 
he appears to lose Interest In his creation, and It 
is only rarely that further reference Is made to 
him. Alfred Budd, for Instance, who became 
British VIce-Consul of San Sebastian In 1907, and 
resides, as the Intelligent reader will have guessed, 
at the San Sebastian British Vice-Consulate, ob- 
tains the M.V.O. In 1908. Nothing Is said, how- 
ever, of the resultant effect on his character, nor 
is any adequate description given — either then or 
later — of the San Sebastian scenery. On the 
other hand, Bucy, who first appears on page 340, 
turns up again on page 644 as the Marquess de 
Bucy, a Grandee of Spain. I was half-expecting 
that the body would be discovered about this time, 
but the author is still busy over his protagonists, 
and only leaves the Marquess in order to Intro- 
duce to us his three musketeers, de Bunsen, de 
Burgh, and de Butts. 

But it Is time that I returned to our hero. Dr. 
Wallis Budge. Although Budge is a golfer of 
world-wide experience, having "conducted ex- 
cavations In Egypt, the Island of Meroe, Nineveh 
and Mesopotamia," It is upon his mental rather 
than his athletic abilities that the author dwells 



Ii8 Not That It Matters 

most lovingly. The fact that In 1886 he wrote 
a pamphlet upon The Coptic History of Elijah 
the Tishhite, and followed it up In 1888 with one 
on The Coptic Martyrdom of George of Cappa- 
docia (which Is, of course, In every drawing- 
room) may not seem at first to have much bearing 
upon the tremendous events which followed later. 
But the author Is artistically right In drawing our 
attention to them; for it is probable that, had 
these popular works not been written, our hero 
would never have been encouraged to proceed 
with his Magical Texts of Za-Walda-Hawdrydt, 
Tasfd Marydm, Sehhat-Le'ahy Gahra Sheldse 
Tezdzu, Aheta-Mtkdel, which had such a startling 
effect on the lives of all the other characters, and 
led Indirectly to the finding of the blood-stain on 
the bath-mat. My own suspicions fell immedi- 
ately upon Thomas Rooke, of whom we are told 
nothing more than "R. W. S.,'* which Is obviously 
the cabbalistic sign of some secret society. 

One of the author's weaknesses Is a certain 
carelessness In the naming of his characters. For 
Instance, no fewer than two hundred and forty-one 
of them are called Smith. True, he endeavours 
to distinguish between them by giving them such 
different Christian names as John, Henry, 
Charles, and so forth, but the result Is bound to 



"Who's Who" 119 

be confusing. Sometimes, indeed, he does not 
even bother to distinguish between their Christian 
names. Thus we have three Henry Smiths, who 
appear to have mixed themselves up even in the 
author's mind. He tells us that Colonel Henry's 
chief recreation Is ''the study of the things around 
him," but It sounds much more like that of the 
Reverend Henry, whose opportunities in the pul- 
pit would be coiisiderablf greater. It is the same 
with the Thomsons, the Wllllamses and others. 
When once he hits upon one of these popular 
names, he is carried away for several pages, and 
insists on calling everybody Thomson. But occa- 
sionally he has an inspiration. Temlstocle Zam- 
mlt is a good name, though the humour of calling 
a famous musician ZImballst is perhaps a little too 
obvious. 

. In conclusion, one can say that while our 
author's merits are many, his faults are of no 
great moment. Certainly he handles his love- 
scenes badly. Many of his characters are mar- 
ried, but he tells us little of the early scenes of 
courtship, and says nothing of any previous en- 
gagements which were afterwards broken off. 
Also, he is apparently incapable of describing a 
child, unless it is the offspring of titled persons 
and will itself succeed to the title; even then he 



120 Not That It Matters 

prefers to dismiss it in a parenthesis. But as a 
picture of the present-day Englishman his novel 
can hardly be surpassed. He is not a writer who 
Is only at home with one class. He can describe 
the utterly unknown and unimportant with as 
much gusto as he describes the genius or the old 
nobility. True, he overcrowds his canvas, but one 
must recognize this as his method. It is so that 
he expresses himself best; just as one painter can 
express himself best in a rendering of the whole 
Town Council of Slappenham, while another only 
requires a single haddock on a plate. 

His future will be watched with interest. He 
hints in his introduction that he has another 
volume in preparation, in which he will introduce 
to us several entirely new C.B.E.'s, besides carry- 
ing on the histories (in the familiar manner of 
our modern novelists) of many of those with 
whom we have already made friends. Who's 
Who, 1920, it is to be called, and I, for one, shall 
look out for it with the utmost eagerness. 



A Day at Lord's. 

WHEN one has been without a certain 
pleasure for a number of years, one is 
accustomed to find on returning to it that it is not 
quite so delightful as one had imagined. In the 
years of abstinence one had built up too glowing 
a picture, and the reality turns out to be some- 
thing much more commonplace. Pleasant, yes; 
but, after all, nothing out of the ordinary. Most 
of us have made this discovery for ourselves in 
the last few months of peace. We have been 
doing the things which we had promised ourselves 
so often during the war, and though they have 
been jolly enough, they are not quite all that we 
dreamed in France and Flanders. As for the 
negative pleasures, the pleasure of not saluting 
or not attending medical boards, they soon lose 
their first freshness. 

Yet I have had one pre-war pleasure this week 
which; carried with it no sort of disappointment. 
It was as good as I had thought it would be. I 
went to Lord's and watched first-class cricket 
again. 

121 



122 Not That It Matters 

There are people who want to "brighten 
cricket.'* They remind me of a certain manager 
to whom I once sent a play. He told me, more 
politely than truthfully, how much he had enjoyed 
reading it, and then pointed out what v/as wrong 
with the construction. "You have two brothers 
here," he said. "They oughtn't to have been 
brothers, they should have been strangers. Then 
one of them marries the heroine. That's wrong; 
the other one ought to have married her. Then 
there's Aunt Jane — she strikes me as a very 
colourless person. If she could have been ar- 
rested in the second act for bigamy And 

then I should leave out your third act altogether, 
and put the fourth act at Monte Carlo, and let 
the heroine be blackmailed by — what's the fel- 
low's name? See what I mean?" I said that I 
saw. "You don't mind my criticizing your play?" 
he added carelessly. I said that he wasn't criti- 
cizing my play. He was writing another one — 
one which I hadn't the least wish to write myself. 

And this is what the brighteners of cricket are 
doing. They are inventing a new game, a game 
which those of us who love cricket have not the 
least desire to watch. If anybody says that he 
finds Lord's or the Oval boring, I shall not be at 
all surprised; the only thing that would surprise 



A Day at Lord's 12^ 

me would be to hear that he found it more boring 
than I find Epsom or Newmarket. Cricket is not 
to everybody's taste; nor Is racing. But those 
who like cricket like it for what it is, and they 
don't want It brightened by those who don't like 
It. Lord Lonsdale, I am sure, would hate me to 
brighten up Newmarket for him. 

Lord's as It is, which Is as it was five years ago, 
Is good enough for me. I would not alter any of 
it. To hear the pavilion bell ring out again was 
to hear the most musical sound in the world. The 
best note Is given at 11.20 in the morning; later 
on It lacks something of Its early ecstasy. When 
people talk of the score of this or that opera I 
smile pityingly to myself. They have never 
heard the true music. The clink of ice against 
glass gives quite a good note on a suitable day, 
but it has not the magic of the Lord's bell. 

As was my habit on these occasions five years 
ago, I bought a copy of The Daily Telegraph on 
entering the ground. In the ordinary way I do 
not take In this paper, but I have always had a 
warm admiration for it, holding it to have quali- 
ties which place It far above any other London 
journal of similar price. For the seats at Lord's 
are uncommonly hard, and a Daily Telegraph, 
folded twice and placed beneath one, brings some- 



124 Not That It Matters 

thing of the solace which good literature will 
always bring. My friends had noticed before the 
war, without being able to account for it, that my 
views became noticeably more orthodox as the 
summer advanced, only to fall away again with 
the approach of autumn. I must have been in- 
fluenced subconsciously by the leading articles. 

It rained, and play was stopped for an hour or 
two. Before the war I should have been annoyed 
about this, and I should have said bitterly that it 
was just my luck. But now I felt that I was in- 
deed lucky thus to recapture in one day all the 
old sensations. It was dehghtful to herald again 
a break in the clouds, and to hear the crowd clap- 
ping hopefully as soon as ever the rain had ceased; 
to applaud the umpires, brave fellows, when they 
ventured forth at last to Inspect the pitch; to 
realize from the sudden activity of the grounds- 
men that the decision was a favourable one; to 
see the umpires, this time in their white coats, 
come out again with the ball and the bails; and 
so to settle down once more to the business of the 
day. 

Perhaps the cricket was slow from the point of 
view of the follower of league football, but I do 
not feel that this is any condemnation of it. An 
essay of Lamb's would be slow to a reader of 



A Day at Lord's 125 

William le Queux's works, who wanted a new 
body in each chapter. I shall not quarrel with 
anyone who holds that a day at Lord's is a dull 
day; if he thinks so, let him take his amusement 
elsewhere. But let him not quarrel with me, be- 
cause I keep to my opinion, as firmly now as 
before the war, that a day at Lord's is a joyous 
day. If he will leave me the old Lord's, I will 
promise not to brighten his football for him. 



By the Sea. 

IT Is very pleasant in August to recline in Fleet 
Street, or wherever stern business keeps one, 
and to think of the sea. I do not envy the millions 
at Margate and Blackpool, at Salcombe and Mine- 
head, for I have persuaded myself that the sea is 
not what it was in my day. Then the pools were 
always full of starfish; crabs — really big crabs — 
stalked the deserted sands; and anemones waved 
their feelers at you from every rock. 

Poets have talked of the unchanging sea (and 
they may be right as regards the actual water), 
but I fancy that the beach must be deteriorating. 
In the last ten years I don't suppose I have seen 
more than five starfishes, though I have walked 
often enough by the margin of the waves — and 
not only to look for lost golf balls. There have 
been occasional belated little crabs whom I have 
interrupted as they were scuttling home, but none 
of those dangerous monsters to whom In fearful 
excitement, and as a challenge to one's companion, 
one used to offer a forefinger. I refuse regret- 
fully your explanation that it is my finger which 

126 



By the Sea 127 

Is bigger; I should like to think that It were Indeed 
so, and that the boys and girls of to-day find their 
crabs and starfishes In the size and quantity to 
which I was accustomed. But I am afraid we 
cannot hide It from ourselves that the supply is 
giving out. It Is In fact obvious that one cannot 
keep on taking starfishes home and hanging them 
up in the hall as barometers without detriment to 
the coming race. 

We had another amusement as children, in 
which I suppose the modern child Is no longer 
able to indulge. We used to wait until the tide 
was just beginning to go dov/n, and then start to 
climb round the foot of the clifls from one sandy 
bay to another. The waves lapped the cliffs, a 
single false step would have plunged us Into the 
sea, and we had all the excitement of being caught 
by the tide without any of the danger. We had 
the further excitement, if we were lucky, of seeing 
frantic people waving to us from the top of the 
cliff, people of Inconceivable ignorance, who 
thought that the tide was coming up and that we 
were In desperate peril. But it was a very special 
day when that happened. 

I have done a little serious climbing since those 
days, but not any which was more enjoyable. The 
sea was never more than a foot below us and 



128 Not That It Matters 

never more than two feet deep, but the shock of 
falling Into it would have been momentarily as 
great as that of falling down a precipice. You 
had therefore the two joys of climbing — the 
physical pleasure of the accomplished effort, and 
the glorious mental reaction when your heart 
returns from the middle of your throat to its 
normal place in your chest. And you had the 
additional advantages that you couldn't get killed, 
and that, if an insuperable difficulty presented 
itself, you were not driven back, but merely waited 
five minutes for the tide to lower itself and dis- 
close a fresh foothold. 

But, as I say, these are not joys for the modern 
child. The tide, I dare say. Is not what it was — 
it does not, perhaps, go down so certainly. Or 
the cliffs are of a different and of an inferior 
shape. Or people are no longer so ignorant as to 
mistake the nature of your position. One way or 
another I expect I do better in Fleet Street. I 
shall stay and Imagine myself by the sea; I shall 
not disappoint myself with the reality. 

But I imagine myself away from bands and 
piers; for a band by a moonlit sea calls you to 
be very grown-up, and the beach and the crabs — 
such as are left — call you to be a child; and be- 
tween the two you can very easily be miserable. 



By the Sea 129 

I can see myself with a spade and bucket being 
extraordinarily happy. The other day I met a 
lucky little boy who had a pile of sand In his gar- 
den to play with, and I was fortunate enough to 
get an order for a tunnel. The tunnel which I 
constructed for him was a good one, but not so 
good that I couldn't see myself building a better 
one with practice. I came away with an ambition 
for architecture. If ever I go to the sea again 
I shall build a proper tunnel; and afterwards — 
well, we shall see. At the moment I feel In tre- 
mendous form. I feel that I could do a cathedral. 
There Is one joy of childhood, however, which 
one can never recapture, and that Is the joy of 
getting wet in the sea. There Is a statue not so 
far from Fleet Street of the man who Introduced 
Sunday schools Into England, but the man whom 
boys and girk would really like to commemorate 
In lasting stone Is the doctor who first said that 
salt water couldn't give you a cold. Whether this 
was true or not I do not know, but It was a splen- 
did and never-failing retort to anxious grown-ups, 
and added much to the joys of the seaside. But 
it Is a joy no longer possible to one who Is his own 
master. I, for Instance, can get my feet wet In 
fresh water If I like; to get them wet in salt water 
is no special privilege. 



130 Not That It Matters 

Feeling as I do, writing as I have written, it is 
sad for me to know that if I really went to the 
sea this August it would not be with a spade and 
a bucket but with a bag of golf clubs; that even 
my evenings would be spent, not on the beach, 
but on a bicycle riding to the nearest town for a 
paper. Yet it is useless for you to say that I do 
not love the sea with my old love, that I am no 
longer pleased with the old childish things. I 
shall maintain that it is the sea which is not what 
it was, and that I am very happy in Fleet Street 
thinking of it as it used to be. 



Golden Fruit 

OF the fruits of the year I give my vote to 
the orange. In the first place it Is a peren- 
nial — if not In actual fact, at least in the green- 
grocer's shop. On the days when dessert is a 
name given to a handful of chocolates and a little 
preserved ginger, when macedoine de fruits Is the 
title bestowed on two prunes and a piece of rhu- 
barb, then the orange, however sour, comes nobly 
to the rescue; and on those other days of plenty 
when cherries and strawberries and raspberries 
and gooseberries riot together upon the table, the 
orange, sweeter than ever, is still there to hold Its 
own. Bread and butter, beef and mutton, eggs 
and bacon, are not more necessary to an ordered 
existence than the orange. 

It is well that the commonest fruit should be 
also the best. Of the virtues of the orange I have 
not room fully to speak. It has properties of 
health-giving, as that It cures influenza and estab- 
lishes the complexion. It Is clean, for whoever 
handles it on its way to your table but handles its 

131 



132 Not That It Matters 

outer covering, its top coat, which is left In the 
hall. It is round, and forms an excellent substi- 
tute with the young for a cricket ball. The pips 
can be flicked at your enemies, and quite a small 
piece of peel makes a slide for an old gentleman. 

But all this would count nothing had not the 
orange such delightful qualities of taste. I dare 
not let myself go upon this subject. I am a slave 
to its sweetness. I grudge every marriage in that 
it means a fresh supply of orange blossom, the 
promise of so much golden fruit cut short. How- 
ever, the world must go on. 

Next to the orange I place the cherry. The 
cherry is a companionable fruit. You can eat it 
while you are reading or talking, and you can go 
on and on, absent-mindedly as it were, though you 
must mind not to swallow the stone. The trouble 
of disengaging this from the fruit is just sufficient 
to make the fruit taste sweeter for the labour. 
The stalk keeps you from soiling your fingers; it 
enables you also to play bob cherry. Lastly, it is 
by means of cherries that one penetrates the great 
mysteries of life — when and whom you will marry, 
and whether she really loves you or Is taking you 
for your worldly prospects. (I may add here 
that I know a girl who can tie a knot in the stalk 
of a cherry with her tongue. It is a tricky busi- 



Golden Fruit 133 

ness, and I am doubtful whether to add it to the 
virtues of the cherry or not.) 

There are only two ways of eating straw- 
berries. One is neat in the strawberry bed, and 
the other is mashed on the plate. The first 
method generally requires us to take up a bent 
position under a net — in a hot sun very uncom- 
fortable, and at any time fatal to the hair. The 
second method takes us into the privacy of the 
home, for it demands a dressing-gown and no 
spectators. For these reasons I think the straw- 
berry an overrated fruit. Yet I must say that I 
like to see one floating in cider cup. It gives a 
note of richness to the affair, and excuses any 
shortcomings in the lunch itself. 

Raspberries are a good fruit gone wrong. A 
raspberry by itself might indeed be the best fruit 
of all; but it is almost impossible to find it alone. 
I do not refer to its attachment to the red currant; 
rather to the attachment to it of so many of our 
dumb little friends. The instinct of the lower 
creatures for the best is well shown in the case of 
the raspberry. If it is to be eaten it must be 
picked by the hand, well shaken, and then taken. 

When you engage a gardener the first thing to 
do is to come to a clear understanding with him 
about the peaches. The best way of settling the 



134 Not That It Matters 

matter is to give him the carrots and the black 
currants and the rhubarb for himself, to allow 
him a free hand with the groundsel and the wal- 
nut trees, and to insist in return for this that you 
should pick the peaches when and how you like. 
If he is a gentleman he will consent. Supposing 
that some satisfactory arrangement were come to, 
and supposing also that you had a silver-bladed 
pocket-knife with which you could peel them in 
the open air, then peaches would come very high 
in the list of fruits. But the conditions are diffi- 
cult. 

Gooseberries burst at the wrong end and 
smother you; melons — as the nigger boy discov^ 
ered — make your ears sticky; currants, when you 
have removed the skin and extracted the seeds, 
are unsatisfying; blackberries have the faults of 
raspberries without their virtues ; plums are never 
ripe. Yet all these fruits are excellent in their 
season. Their faults are faults which we can for- 
give during a slight acquaintance, which indeed 
seem but pleasant little idiosyncrasies in the 
stranger. But we could not live with them. 

Yet with the orange we do live year in and 
year out. That speaks well for the orange. The 
fact is that there is an honesty about the orange 
which appeals to all of us. If it is going to be 



Golden Fruit 135 

bad — for even the best of us are bad sometimes — 
it begins to be bad from the outside, not from 
the inside. How many a pear which presents a 
blooming face to the world is rotten at the core. 
How many an innocent-looking apple is harbour- 
ing a worm in the bud. But the orange has no 
secret faults. Its outside is a mirror of its inside, 
and if you are quick you can tell the shopman so 
before he slips it into the bag. 



Signs of Character. 

WELLINGTON is said to have chosen his 
officers by their noses and chins. The 
standard for them in noses must have been rather 
high, to judge by the portraits of the Duke, but 
no doubt he made allowances. Anyhow, by this 
method he got the men he wanted. Some people, 
however, may think that he would have done 
better to have let the mouth be the deciding test. 
The lines of one's nose are more or less arranged 
for one at birth. A baby born with a snub nose 
would feel it hard that the decision that he would 
be no use to Wellington should be come to so 
early. And even if he arrived in the world with a 
Roman nose, he might smash It up in childhood, 
and with it his chances of military fame. This, 
I think you will agree with me, would be unfair. 
Now the mouth is much more likely to be a 
true index of character. A man may clench his 
teeth firmly or smile disdainfully or sneer, or do 
a hundred things which will be reflected in his 
mouth rather than in his nose or chin. It is 
through the mouth and eyes that all emotions are 

136 



Signs of Character 137 

expressed, and in the mouth and eyes therefore 
that one would expect the marks of such emotions 
to be left. I did read once of a man whose nose 
quivered with rage, but It is not usual; I never 
heard of anyone whose chin did anything. It 
would be absurd to expect It to. 

But there arises now the objection that a man 
may conceal his mouth, and by that his character, 
with a moustache. There arises, too, the objec- 
tion that a person whom you thought was a fool, 
because he always went about with his mouth 
open, may only have had a bad cold In the head. 
In fact the difficulties of telling anyone's char- 
acter by his face seem more insuperable every 
moment. How, then, are we to tell whether we 
may safely trust a man with our daughter, or our 
favourite golf club, or whatever we hold most 
dear? 

Fortunately a benefactor has stepped In at the 
right moment with an article on the cigar-manner. 
Our gentleman has made the discovery that you 
can tell a man's nature by the way he handles his 
cigar, and he gives a dozen illustrations to explain 
his theory. True, this leaves out of account the 
men who don't smoke cigars; although, of course, 
you might sum them all up, with a certain amount 
of justification, as foolish. But you do get, I am 



138 Not That It Matters 

assured, a very important Index to the characters 
of smokers — which is as much as to say, of the 
people who really count. 

I am not going to reveal all the clues to you 
now; partly because I might be infringing the 
copyright of another, partly because I have for- 
gotten them. But the idea roughly is that if a 
man holds his cigar between his finger and thumb, 
he is courageous and kind to animals (or what- 
ever it may be), and if he holds it between his 
first and second fingers he is impulsive but yet 
considerate to old ladies, and if he holds it upside 
down he is (besides being an ass) jealous and self- 
assertive, and if he sticks a knife into the stump 
so as to smoke it to the very end he is — yes, you 
have guessed this one — he is mean. You see what 
a useful thing a cigar may be. 

I think now I am sorry that this theory has 
been given to the world. Yes; I blame myself 
for giving it further publicity. In the old days 
when we bought — or better, had presented to us 
— a cigar, a doubt as to whether it was a good 
one was all that troubled us. We bit one end and 
lit the other, and, the doubt having been solved, 
proceeded tranquilly to enjoy ourselves. But all 
this will be changed now. We shall be horribly 
self-conscious. When we take our cigars from 



Signs of Character 139 

our mouths we shall feel our neighbours' eyes 
rooted upon our hands, the while we try to re- 
member which of all the possible manipulations 
is the one which represents virtue at its highest 
power. Speaking for myself, I hold my cigar in 
a dozen different ways during an evening (though 
never, of course, on the end of a knife), and I 
tremble to think of the diabolically composite na- 
ture which the modern Wellingtons of the table 
must attribute to me. In future I see that I must 
concentrate on one method. If only I could re- 
member the one which shows me at my best ! 

But the tobacco test is not the only one. We 
may be told by the way we close our hands; the 
tilt of a walking-stick may unmask us. It is use- 
less to model ourselves now on the strong, silent 
man of the novel whose face is a shutter to hide 
his emotions. This is a pity; yes, I am convinced 
now that it is a pity. If my secret fault is cheque- 
forging I do not want it to be revealed to the 
world by the angle of my hat; still less do I wish 
to discover it in a friend whom I like or whom 
I can beat at billiards. 

How dull the world would be if we knew every 
acquaintance inside out as soon as we had offered 
him our cigar-case. Suppose — I put an extreme 
case to you — suppose a pleasant young bachelor 



140 Not That It Matters 

who admired our bowling showed himself by his 
shoe laces to be a secret wife-beater. What could 
we do? Cut so unique a friend? Ah no. Let us 
pray to remain in ignorance of the faults of those 
we like. Let us pray it as sincerely as we pray 
that they shall remain in ignorance of ours. 



Intellectual Snobbery. 

A GOOD many years ago I had a painful 
experience. I was discovered by my house- 
master reading in bed at the unauthorized hour 
of midnight. Smith minor in the next bed (we 
shared a candle) was also reading. We were 
both discovered. But the most annoying part of 
the business, as it seemed to me then, was that 
Smith minor was discovered reading Alton Locke , 
and that I was discovered reading Marooned 
Among Cannibals. If only our house-master had 
come in the night before ! Then he would have 
found me reading Alton Locke. Just for a mo- 
ment it occurred to me to tell him this, but after 
a little reflection I decided that it would be un- 
wise. He might have misunderstood the bearings 
of the revelation. 

There is hardly one of us who is proof against 
this sort of intellectual snobbery. A detective 
story may have been a very good friend to us, 
but we don't want to drag it into the conversation ; 
we prefer a casual reference to The Egoist, with 
which we have perhaps only a bowing acquaint- 

141 



142 Not That It Matters 

ance ; a reference which leaves the impression that 
we are Inseparable companions, or at any rate 
Inseparable until such day when we gather from 
our betters that there are heights even beyond 
The Egoist. Dead or alive, we would sooner be 
found with a copy of Marcus Aurellus than with 
a copy of Marie Corelll. I used to know a man 
who carried always with him a Russian novel In 
the original; not because he read Russian, but 
because a day might come when, as the result of 
some accident, the "pockets of the deceased'* 
would be exposed In the public Press. As he said, 
you never know ; but the only accident which hap- 
pened to him was to be stranded for twelve hours 
one August at a wayside station In the Highlands. 
After this he maintained that the Russians were 
overrated. 

I should like to pretend that I myself have 
grown out of these snobbish ways by this time, 
but I am doubtful If It would be true. It hap- 
pened to me not so long ago to be travelling in 
company of which I was very much ashamed; and 
to be ashamed of one's company Is to be a snob. 
At this period I was trying to amuse myself (and, 
If it might be so, other people) by writing a bur- 
lesque story In the manner of an Imaginary col- 
laboration by Sir Hall Caine and Mrs. Florence 



Intellectual Snobbery 143 

Barclay. In order to do this I had to study the 
works of these famous authors, and for many 
week-ends in succession I might have been seen 
travelling to, or returning from, the country with 
a couple of their books under my arm. To keep 
one book beneath the arm is comparatively easy; 
to keep two is much more difficult. Many was 
the time, while waiting for my train to come in, 
that one of those books slipped from me. Indeed, 
there is hardly a junction in the railway system 
of the southern counties at which I have not 
dropped on some Saturday or other a Caine or a 
Barclay; to have it restored to me a moment later 
by a courteous fellow-passenger — courteous, but 
with a smile of gentle pity in his eye as he ghmpsed 
the author's name. ''Thanks very much," I would 
stammer, blushing guiltily, and perhaps I would 
babble about a sick friend to whom I was taking 
them, or that I was running out of paper-weights. 
But he never believed me. He knew that he 
would have said something like that himself. 

Nothing Is easier than to assume that other 
people share one's weaknesses. No doubt Jack 
the Ripper excused himself on the ground that it 
was human nature; possibly, indeed, he wrote an 
essay like this, in which he speculated mildly as 
to the reasons which made stabbing so attractive 



144 Not That It Matters 

to us all. So I realize that I may be doing you 
an injustice In suggesting that you who read may 
also have your little snobberies. But I confess 
that I should like to cross-examine you. If In 
conversation with you, on the subject (let us say) 
of heredity, a subject to which you had devoted 
a good deal of study, I took it for granted that 
you had read Ommany's Approximations ^ would 
you make It quite clear to me that you had not 
read It? Or would you let me carry on the dis^ 
cusslon on the assumption that you knew It well; 
would you, even, in answer to a direct question, 
say shamefacedly that though you had not — er — 
actually read it, you — er — knew about it, of 
course, and had — er — read extracts from it? 
Somehow I think that I could lead you on to this; 
perhaps even make you say that you had actually 
ordered it from your library, before I told you 
the horrid truth that Ommany's Approximations 
was an Invention of my own. 

It Is absurd that we (I say "we," for I Include 
you now) should behave like this, for there Is no 
book over which we need be ashamed, either to 
have read It or not to have read It. Let us, there- 
fore, be frank. In order to remove the unfortu- 
nate impression of myself which I have given you, 
I will confess that I have only read three of Scott's 



Intellectual Snobbery 145 

novels, and begun, but never finished, two of 
Henry James'. I will also confess — and here I 
am by way of restoring that unfortunate impres- 
sion — that I do quite well in Scottish and Jacobean 
circles on those five books. For, if a question' 
arises as to which is Scott's masterpiece, it is 
easy for me to suggest one of my three, with the 
air of one who has chosen it, not over two others, 
but over twenty. Perhaps one of my three is the 
acknowledged masterpiece; I do not know. If it 
Is, then, of course, all Is well. But if It is not, 
then I must appear rather a clever fellow for hav- 
ing rejected the obvious. With regard to Henry 
James, my position is not quite so secure; but at 
least I have good reason for feeling that the two 
novels which I was unable to finish cannot be his 
best, and with a little tact I can appear to be de- 
fending this opinion hotly against some Imaginary 
authority who has declared In favour of them. 
One might have read the collected works of both 
authors, yet make less of an Impression. 

Indeed, sometimes I feel that I have read their 
collected works, and Ommany's Approximations, 
and many other books with which you would be 
only too glad to assume familiarity. For In giving 
others the Impression that I am on terms with, 
these masterpieces, I have but handed on an im- 



146 Not That It Matters 

pression which has gradually formed itself in my 
own mind. So I take no advantage of them; and 
if it appears afterwards that we have been de- 
ceived together, I shall be at least as surprised 
and indignant about it as they. 



A Question of Form. 

THE latest Invention on the market is the 
wasp gun. In theory it is something like 
letter clip; you pull the trigger and the upper 
n- lower plates snap together with a suddenness 
Vv hich would surprise any insect in between. The 
r rouble will be to get him in the right place before 
•iring. But I can see that a lot of fun can be 
jj out of a wasp drive. We shall stand on the 
ea^i: of th marmalade while the beaters go 
through it, and, given sufficient guns, there will 
not be li.any insects to escape. A loader to clean 
the weapon at regular Intervals will be a necessity. 
Yet I am afraid that society will look down 
upon the wasp gun. Anything useful and handy 
is always barred by the best people. I can imagine 
a bounder being described as ^'the sort of person 
who uses a wasp gun instead of a teaspoon." 
x^s we all know, a hat-guard is the mark of a very 
low fellow. I suppose the Idea is that you and I, 
being so dashed rich, do not much mind if our 
straw hat does blow off into the Serpentine; It 
is only the poor wretch of a clerk, unable to afford 

147 



148 Not That It Matters 

a new one every day, who must take precautions 
against losing his first. Yet how neat, how use- 
ful, is the hat-guard. With what pride its In- 
ventor must have given birth to it. Probably he 
expected a statue at the corner of Cromwell Road, 
fitting reward for a public benefactor. He did 
not understand that, since his invention was use- 
ful, it was probably bad form. 

Consider, again, the Richard or "dicky." 
Could there be anything neater or more dressy, 
anything more thoroughly useful? Yet you and 
I scorn to wear one. I remember a terrible situa- 
tion in a story by Mr. W. S. Jackson. The hero 
found himself in a foreign hotel without his lug- 
gage. To that hotel came, with her father, the 
girl whom he adored silently. An invitation was 
given him to dinner with them, and he had to bor- 
row what clothes he could from friendly waiters. 
These, alas! included a dicky. Well, the dinner 
began well; our hero made an excellent impres- 
sion; all was gaiety. Suddenly a candle was over- 
turned and the flame caught the heroine's frock. 
The hero knew what the emergency demanded. 
He knew how heroes always whipped off their 
coats and wrapped them round burning heroines. 
He jumped up like a bullet (or whatever jumps 
up quickest) and — remembered. 



A Question of Form 149 

He had a dicky on! Without his coat, he 
would discover the dicky to the one person of 
all from whom he wished to hide it. Yet if he 
kept his coat on, she might die. A truly horrible 
dilemma. I forget which horn he impaled him- 
self upon, but I expect you and I would have kept 
the secret of the Richard at all costs. And what 
really is wrong with a false shirt-front? Nothing 
except that it betrays the poverty of the wearer. 
Laundry bills don't worry us, bless you, who have 
a new straw hat every day; but how terrible if it 
was suspected that they did. 

Our gentlemanly objection to the made-up tie 
seems to rest on a different foundation; I am 
doubtful as to the psychology of that. Of course 
it is a deception, but a deception is only serious 
when it passes itself off as something which really 
matters. Nobody thinks that a self-tied tie mat- 
ters; nobody is really proud of being able to make 
a cravat out of a length of silk. I suppose it is 
simply the fact that a made-up tie saves time which 
condemns it; the safety razor was nearly con- 
demned for a like reason. We of the leisured 
classes can spend hours over our toilet; by all 
means let us despise those who cannot. 

As far as dress goes, a man only knows the 
things which a man mustn't do. It would be 



ISO Not That It Matters 

interesting if women would tell us what no real 
lady ever does. I have heard a woman classified 
contemptuously as one who does her hair up vs^ith 
two hair-pins, and no doubt bad feminine form 
can be observed in other shocking directions. But 
again it seems to^e that the semblance of poverty, 
whether of means or of leisure, is the one thing 
which must be avoided. 

Why, then, should the wasp gun be considered 
bad form? I don't know, but I have an instinc- 
tive feeling that it will be. Perhaps a wasp 
gun indicates a lack of silver spoons suitable for 
lethal uses. Perhaps it shows too careful a con- 
sideration of the marmalade. A man of money 
drowns his wasp in the jar with his spoon, and 
carelessly calls for another pot to be opened. 
The poor man waits on the outskirts with his 
gun, and the marmalade, void of corpses, can 
still Be passed round. Your gun proclaims your 
poverty; then let it be avoided. 

All the same I think I shall have one. I have 
kept clear of hat-guards and Richards and made- 
up ties without quite knowing why, but honestly 
I have not felt the loss of them. The wasp gun 
is different; having seen it, I feel that I should be 
miserable without it. It is going to be excellent 
sport, wasp-shooting; a steady hand, a good eye, 



A Question of Form 151 

and a certain amount of courage will be called for. 
When the season opens I shall be there, good 
form or bad form. We shall shoot the apple- 
quince coverts first. ''Hornet over!" 



A Slice of Fiction. 

THIS is a jolly world, and delightful things 
go on in it. For instance, I had a picture 
post card only yesterday from William Benson, 
who is staying at Ilfracombe. H-^ wrote to say 
that he had gone down to Ilfracombe for a short 
holiday, and had been much struck by the beauty 
of the place. On one of his walks he happened 
to notice that there was to be a sale of several 
plots of land occupying a quite unique position 
in front of the sea. He had immediately thought 
of me in connection with it. My readiness to 
consider a good investment had long been known 
to him, and in addition he had heard rumours that 
I might be coming down to Ilfracombe in order 
to recruit my health. If so, here was a chance 
which should be brought to my knowledge. 
Further particulars . . . and so on. Which was 
extremely friendly of William Benson. In fact, 
my only complaint of William is that he has his 
letters lithographed — a nasty habit in a friend. 

But I have allowed myself to be carried away. 
It was not really of Mr. Benson that I was think- 

152 



A Slice of Fiction 153 

ing when I said that dehghtful things go on in 
this world, but of a certain pair of lovers, the 
tragedy of whose story has been revealed to me 
in a two-line "agony" in a morning paper. When 
anything particularly attractive happens in real 
life, we express our appreciation by saying that it 
is the sort of thing which one reads about in books 
— perhaps the highest compliment we can pay to 
Nature. Well, the story underlying this adver- 
tisement reeks of the feuilleton and the stage. 

"Pat, I was alone when you called. You heard 
me talking to the dog. Please make appointment. 
—Daisy.'' 

You will agree with me when you read this 
that it is almost too good to be true. There is a 
freshness and a naivete about it which is only to 
be found in American melodrama. Let us re- 
construct the situation, and we shall see at once 
how delightfully true to fiction real life can be. 

Pat was in love with Daisy — engaged to her 
we may say with confidence (for a reason which 
will appear in a moment). But even though she 
had plighted her troth to him, he was jealous, 
miserably jealous, of every male being who ap- 
proached her. One day last week he called on 



154 Not That It Matters 

her at the house In Netting Hill. The parlour- 
maid opened the door and smiled brightly at him. 
'*Miss Daisy is upstairs in the drawing-room," she 
said. "Thank you," he replied, "I will announce 
myself." (Now you see how we know that they 
were engaged. He must have announced him- 
self in order to have reached the situation implied 
In the *'agony," and he would not have been al- 
lowed to do so if he had not had the standing of 
a fiance.) 

For a moment before knocking Patrick stood 
outside the drawing-room door, and in that 
moment the tragedy occurred; he heard his lady's 
voice. ^'DarlingF' It said, *'she shall kiss her 
sweetest, ownest, little pupsy-wupsy." 

Patrick's brow grew black. His strong jaw 
clenched (just like the jaws of those people on 
the stage), and he staggered back from the door. 
*'This is the end," he muttered. Then he strode 
down the stairs and out Into the stifling streets. 
And up In the drawing-room of the house In 
Notting Hill Daisy and the toy pom sat and 
wondered why their lord and master was so late. 

Now we come to the letter which Patrick wrote 
to Daisy, telling her that It was all over. He 
would explain to her how he had ''accidentally" 
(he would dwell upon that), accidentally over- 



A Slice of Fiction 155 

heard her and her (probably he was rather 

coarse here) exchanging terms of endearment; 
he would accuse her of betraying one whose only 
fault was that he loved her not wisely but too 
well; he would announce gloomily that he had lost 
his faith in women. All this Is certain. But it 
would appear also that he made some such threat 
as this — most likely in a postscript: "It is no 
good your writing. There can be no explanation. 
Your letters will be destroyed unopened." It is 
a question, however, if even this would have pre- 
vented Daisy from trying an appeal by post, for 
though one may talk about destroying letters un- 
opened, it is an extremely difficult thing to do. I 
feel, therefore, that Patrick's letter almost cer- 
tainly contained a P. P. S. also — to this effect: 
**I cannot remain in London where we have spent 
so many happy hours together. I am probably 
leaving for the Rocky Mountains to-night. Let- 
ters will not be forwarded. Do not attempt to 
follow me." 

And so Daisy was left with only the one means 
of communication and explanation — the agony 
columns of the morning newspapers. **I was 
alone when you called. You heard me talking 
to the dog. Please make appointment." In the 
last sentence there is just a hint of irony which 



156 Not That It Matters 

I find very attractive. It seems to me to say, 
"Don't for heaven's sake come rushing back to 
Notting Hill (all love and remorse) without 
warning, or you might hear me talking to the cat 
or the canary. Make an appointment, and I'll 
take care that there's nothing in the room when 
you come." We may tell ourselves, I think, that 
Daisy understands her Patrick. In fact, I am 
beginning to understand Patrick myself, and I 
see now that the real reason why Daisy chose 
the agony column as the medium of communica- 
tion was that she knew Patrick would prefer it. 
Patrick is distinctly the sort of man who likes 
agony columns. I am sure it was the first thing 
he turned to on Wednesday morning. 

It occurs to me to wonder if the honeymoon 
will be spent at Ilfracombe. Patrick must have 
received William Benson's picture post card too. 
We have all had one. Just fancy if he had gone 
to the Rocky Mountains; almost certainly Mr. 
Benson's letters would not have been forwarded. 



The Label. 

ON those rare occasions when I put on my 
best clothes and venture into society, I am 
always astonished at the number of people in 
it whom I do not know. I have stood in a 
crowded ball-room, or sat in a crowded restaurant, 
and reflected that, of all the hundreds of souls 
present, there was not one of whose existence I 
had previously had any suspicion. Yet they all 
live tremendously important lives, lives not only 
important to themselves but to numbers of friends 
and relations; every day they cross some sort of 
Rubicon; and to each one of them there comes a 
time when the whole of the rest of the world 
(including — confound it! — me) seems absolutely 
of no account whatever. That I had lived all 
these years In contented Ignorance of their ex- 
istence makes me a little ashamed. 

To-day in my oldest clothes I have wandered 
through the index of The Times Literary Supple^ 
menty and I am now feeling a little ashamed of 
my Ignorance of so many books. Of novels alone 
there seem to be about 900. To write even a 

157 



158 Not That It Matters 

thoroughly futile novel Is, to my thinkiing, a 
work of extraordinary endurance; yet in, say, 
600 houses this work has been going on, and I 
(and you, and all of us) have remained utterly 
unmoved. Well, I have been making up for my 
indifference this morning. I have been reading 
the titles of the books. That is not so good (or 
bad) as reading the books themselves, but It 
enables me to say that I have heard of such and 
such a novel, and in some cases it does give me a 
slight clue to what goes on Inside. 

I should imagine that the best part of writing 
a novel was the choosing a title. My idea of 
a title is that It should be something which re- 
flects the spirit of your work and gives the hesi- 
tating purchaser some Indication of what he is 
asked to buy. To call your book Ethan Frome or 
Esther Grant or John Temple or John Merridew 
(I quote from the Index) Is to help the reader 
not at all. All It tells him Is that one of the 
characters Inside will be called John or Esther — a 
matter, probably, of indifference to him. Phyllis 
Is a better title, because it does give a suggestion 
of the nature of the book. No novel with a 
tragic ending, no powerful realistic novel, would 
be called Phyllis. Without having read Phyllis 
I should say that it was a charming story of 



The Label 159 

suburban life, told mostly in dialogue, and that 
Phyllis herself was a perfect dear — though a lit- 
tle cruel about that first box of chocolates he sent 
her. However, she married him in the end all 
right. 

But if you don't call your book Phyllis or John 
Temple or Mrs. Elmsley^ what — I hear you ask- 
ing — are you to call it? Well, you might call it 
Kapak, as I see somebody has done. The beauty 
of Kapak as a title is that if you come into the 
shop by the back entrance, and so approach the 
book from the wrong end, it is still Kapak. A 
title which looks the same from either end is of 
immense advantage to an author. Besides, in this 
particular case there is a mystery about Kapak 
which one is burning to solve. Is it the bride's 
pet name for her father-in-law, the password into 
the magic castle, or that new stuff with which you 
polish brown boots? Or is it only a camera? 
Let us buy the book at once and find out. 

Another mystery title is The Man with Thicker 
Beard, which probably means something. It is 
like Kapak in this, that it reads equally well back- 
wards; but it is not so subtle. Still, we should 
probably be lured on to buy it. On the other 
hand, A Welsh Nightingale and a Would-be Suf- 
fragette is just the sort of book to which we 



i6o Not That It Matters 

would not be tempted by the title. It is bad 
enough to have to say to the shopman, *'Have 
you A Welsh Nightingale and a Would-be Sufra- 
gettef^ but if we forgot the title, as we prob- 
ably would, and had to ask at random for a 
would-be nightingale and a Welsh suffragette, or 
a wood nightingale and a Welsh rabbit, or the 
Welsh suffragette's night in gaol, we should soon 
begin to wish that we had decided on some quite 
simple book such as Greed, Earth, or Jonah. 

And this is why a French title is always such 
a mistake. Authors must remember that their 
readers have not only to order the book, in many 
cases, verbally, but also to recommend it to their 
friends. So I think Mr. Oliver Onions made a 
mistake when he called his collection of short 
stories Pot au Feu. It is a good title, but it is 
the sort of title to which the person to whom 
you are recommending the book always answers, 
"What?" And when people say "What?" in 
reply to your best Parisian accent, the only thing 
possible for you is to change the subject alto- 
gether. 

But it is quite time that we came to some sort 
of decision as to what makes the perfect title. 
Kapak will attract buyers, as I have said, though 
to some it may not seem quite fair. Excellent 



The Label i6i 

from a commercial point of view, it does not sat- 
isfy the conditions we laid down at first. The 
title, we agreed, must reflect the spirit of the 
book. In one sense Five Gallons of Gasolene does 
this, but of course nobody could ask for that in 
a bookshop. 

Well, then, here is a perfect title, Their High 
Adventure. That explains itself just sufficiently. 
When a Man's Married, For Henri and Navarre, 
and The King Over the Water are a little more 
obvious, but they are still good. The Love Story 
of a Mormon makes no attempt to deceive the 
purchaser, but it can hardly be called a beautiful 
title. Melody in Silver, on the other hand, is 
beautiful, but for this reason makes one afraid to 
buy it, lest there should be disappointment within. 
In fact, as I look down the index, I am beginning 
to feel glad that there are so many hundreds of 
novels which I haven't read. In most of them 
there would be disappointment. And really one 
only reads books nowadays so as to be able to 
say to one's neighbour on one's rare appearances 
in society, ^^Have you read The Forged Coupon, 
and what do you think of The Muck Rakef* 
And for this an index is quite enough. 



The Profession. 

1HAVE been reading a little book called How 
to Write for the Press. Other books which 
have been published upon the same subject are 
How to Be an Author y How to Write a Play, How 
to Succeed as a Journalist^ How to Write for the 
Magazines J and How to Earn £600 a Year with 
the Pen. Of these the last-named has, I think, 
the most pleasing title. Anybody can write a 
play; the trouble is to get it produced. Almost 
anybody can be an author; the business is to col- 
lect money and fame from this state of being. 
Writing for the magazines, again, sounds a de- 
lightful occupation, but literally it means nothing 
without the co-operation of the editors of the 
magazines, and it is this co-operation which Is so 
difficult to secure. But to earn £600 a year with 
the pen Is to do a definite thing; if the book could 
really tell the secret of that, it would have an 
enormous sale. I have not read it, so I cannot 
say what the secret is. Perhaps it was only a 
handbook on forgery. 

How to Write for the Press disappointed me. 
162 



The Profession 163 

It Is concerned not with the literary journalist 
(as I believe he is called) but with the reporter 
(as he is never called, the proper title being "spe- 
cial representative"). It gives in tabular form 
a list of the facts you should ascertain at the dif- 
ferent functions you attend; with this book in 
your pocket there would be no excuse if you 
neglected to find out at a wedding the names of 
the bride and bridegroom. It also gives — and I 
think this is very friendly of it — a list of useful 
synonyms for the principal subjects, animate and 
inanimate, of description. The danger of calling 
the protagonists at the court of Hymen (this 
one is not from the book; I thought of it myself 
just now) — the danger of calling them "the happy 
paPr" more than once in a column is that your 
readers begin to suspect that you are a person 
of extremely limited mind, and when once they 
get this idea into their heads they are not in a 
proper state to appreciate the rest of your article. 
But if in your second paragraph you speak of "the 
joyful couple," and in your third of "the ecstatic 
brace," you give an impression of careless mas- 
tery oT the language which can never be washed 
away. 

Among the many interesting chapters is one 
dealing with contested elections. One of the 



164 Not That It Matters 

questions to which the special representative was 
advised to find an answer was this: ''What out- 
side bodies are taking active part in the contest?'* 
In the bad old days — now happily gone for ever 
— the outside bodies of dead cats used to take 
an active and important part in the contest, and 
as the same body would often be used twice the 
reporter in search of statistics was placed in a 
position of great responsibility. Nowadays, I 
suppose, he is only meant to concern himself with 
such bodies as the Coal Consumers' League and 
the Tariff Reform League, and there would be 
no doubt in the mind of anybody as to whether 
they were there or not. 

I am afraid I should not be a success as "our 
special representative." I should never think of 
half the things which occur to the good reporter. 
You read in your local paper a sentence like this: 
"The bride's brother, who only arrived last week 
from Australia, where he held an important post 
under the Government, and is about to proceed 
on a tour through Canada with — curiously enough 
- — a nephew of the bridegroom, gave her away." 
Well, what a mass of information has to be 
gleaned before that sentence can be written. Or 
this: '*The hall was packed to suffocation, and 
beneath the glare of the electric light — specially 



The Profession 165 

installed for this occasion by Messrs. Ampere & 
Son of Pumpton, the building being at ordinary 
times strikingly deficient in the matter of artificial 
lighting in spite of the efforts of the more progres- 
sive members of the town council — the faces of 
not a few of the fairer sex could be observed.'* 
You know, I am afraid I should have forgotten 
all that. I should simply have obtained a copy 
of the principal speech, and prefaced it with the 
words, "Mr. Dodberry then spoke as follows"; 
or, if my conscience would not allow of such a 
palpable misstatement, "Mr. Dodberry then rose 
with the intention of speaking as follows." 

In the more human art of interviewing I should 
be equally at fault. The interview itself would 
be satisfactory, but I am afraid that its publica- 
tion would lead people to believe that all the best 
things had been said by me. To remember what 
anybody else has said is easy; to remember, even 
five minutes after, what one has said oneself is 
almost impossible. For to recall your remarks in 
our argument at the club last night is simply a 
matter of memory; to recall mine, I have to for- 
get all that I meant to have said, all that I ought 
to have said, and all that I have thought upon the 
subject since. 

In fact, I begin to see that the successful re- 



i66 Not That It Matters 

porter must eliminate his personality altogether, 
whereas the successful literary journalist depends 
for his success entirely upon his personality — 
which is what is meant by "style." I suppose It 
is for this reason that, when the literary journalist 
is sent as "our extra-special representative" to re- 
port a prize fight or a final cup tie or a political 
meeting, the result is always appalling. The 
"ego" bulges out of every line, obviously con- 
scious that it is showing us no ordinary reporting, 
determined that it will not be overshadowed by 
the importance of the subject. And those who 
are more interested in the matter than in the 
manner regard him as an intruder, and the others 
regret that he is so greatly overtaxing his strength. 
So each to his business, and his handbook to 
each — How to Write for the Press to the special 
representative, and How to Be an Author to the 
author. There is no book, I believe, called How 
to Be a Solicitor^ or a doctor or an admiral or a 
brewer. That is a different matter altogether; 
but any fool can write for the papers. 



Smoking as a Fine Art. 

MY first introduction to Lady Nicotine was 
at the innocent age of eight, when, finding 
a small piece of somebody else's tobacco lying 
unclaimed on the ground, I decided to experi- 
ment with it. Numerous desert island stories had 
told me that the pangs of hunger could be al- 
layed by chewing tobacco; it was thus that the 
hero staved of! death before discovering the bread- 
fruit tree. Every right-minded boy of eight hopes 
to be shipwrecked one day, and it was proper 
that I should find out for myself whether my 
authorities could be trusted in this matter. So 
I chewed tobacco. In the sense that I certainly 
did not desire food for some time afterwards, 
my experience justified the authorities, but I felt 
at the time that it was not so much for staving 
of[ death as for reconciling oneself to it that to- 
bacco-chewing was to be recommended. I have 
never practised it since. 

At eighteen I went to Cambridge, and bought 
two pipes in a case. In those days Greek was 
compulsory, but not more so than two pipes in 

167 



i68 Not That It Matters 

a case. One of the pipes had an amber stem 
and the other a vulcanite stem, and both of them 
had silver belts. That also was compulsory. 
Having bought them, one was free to smoke 
cigarettes. However, at the end of my first year 
I got to work seriously on a shilling briar, and 
I have smoked that, or something like it, ever 
since. 

In the last four years there has grown up a 
new school of pipe-smokers, by which (I suspect) 
I am hardly regarded as a pipe-smoker at all. 
This school buys its pipes always at one particular 
shop; its pupils would as soon think of smoking 
a pipe without the white spot as of smoking 
brown paper. So far are they from smoking 
brown paper that each one of them has his to- 
bacco specially blended according to the colour of 
his hair, his taste In revues, and the locality in 
which he lives. The first blend is naturally not 
the ideal one. It is only when he has been a 
confirmed smoker for at least three months, and 
knows the best and worst of all tobaccos, that his 
exact requirements can be satisfied. 

How^ever, it is the pipe rather than the tobacco 
which marks him as belonging to this particular 
school. He pins his faith, not so much to its 
labour-saving devices as to the white spot out- 



Smoking as a Fine Art 169 

side, the white spot of an otherwise aimless life. 
This tells the world that it is one of the pipes. 
Never was an announcement more superfluous. 
From the moment, shortly after breakfast, when 
he strikes his first match to the moment, just be- 
fore bedtime, when he strikes his hundredth, it 
is obviously the pipe which he is smoking. 

For whereas men of an older school, like my- 
self, smoke for the pleasure of smoking, men 
of this school smoke for the pleasure of pipe- 
owning — of selecting which of their many white- 
spotted pipes they will fill with their specially- 
blended tobacco, of filling the one so chosen, of 
lighting it, of taking it from the mouth to gaze 
lovingly at the white spot and thus letting it go 
out, of lighting it again and letting it go out again, 
of polishing it up with their own special polisher 
and putting it to bed, and then the pleasure of 
beginning all over again with another white- 
spotted one. They are not so much pipe-smokers 
as pipe-keepers; and to have spoken as I did just 
now of their owning pipes was wrong, for it is 
they who are in bondage to the white spot. 

This school is founded firmly on four years 
of war. When at the age of eighteen you are 
suddenly given a cheque-book and called *'Sir,*' 
you must do something by way of acknowledg- 



170 Not That It Matters 

ment. A pipe in the mouth makes it clear that 
there has been no mistake — you are undoubtedly 
a man. But you may be excused for feeling after 
the first pipe that the joys of smoking have been 
rated too high, and for trying to extract your 
pleasure from the polish on the pipe's surface, 
the pride of possessing a special mixture of your 
own, and such-like matters, rather than from the 
actual inspiration and expiration of smoke. In 
the same way a man not fond of reading may 
find delight in a library of well-bound books. 
They are pleasant to handle, pleasant to talk 
about, pleasant to show to friends. But it is the 
man without the library of well-bound books who 
generally does most of the reading. 

So I feel that it is we of the older school who 
do most of thje smoking. We smoke uncon- 
sciously while we are doing other things; they 
try, but not very successfully, to do other things 
while they are consciously smoking. No doubt 
they despise us, and tell themselves that we are 
not real smokers, but I fancy that they feel a little 
uneasy sometimes. For my young friends are 
always trying to persuade me to join their school, 
to become one of the white-spotted ones. I have 
no desire to be of their company, but I am pre- 
pared to make a suggestion to the founder of the 



Smoking as a Fine Art 171 

school. It is that he should invent a pipe, white 
spot and all, which smokes itself. His pupils 
could hang it in the mouth as picturesquely as be- 
fore, but the incidental bother of keeping it alight 
would no longer trouble them. 



The Path to Glory. 

MY friend Mr. Sidney Mandragon is getting 
on. He is now one of the great ones of 
the earth. He has just been referred *to as 
"Among those present was Mr. Sidney Man- 
dragon." 

As everybody knows (or will know when they 
have read this article) the four stages along the 
road to literary fame are marked by the four 
different manners in which the traveller's presence 
at a public function is recorded in the Press. At 
the first stage the reporter glances at the list of 
guests, and says to himself, "Mr. George Mere- 
dith — never heard of him," and for all the world 
knows next morning, Mr. George Meredith might 
just as well have stayed at home. At the second 
stage (some years later) the reporter murmurs 
to his neighbour in a puzzled sort of way: 
"George Meredith? George Meredith? Now 
where have I come across that name lately? 
Wasn't he the man who pushed a wheelbarrow 
across America? Or was he the chap who gave 
evidence In that murder trial last week?" And, 

172 



The Path to Glory 173 

feeling that in either case his readers will be in- 
terested in the fellow, he says: "The guests in- 
cluded . . . Mr. George Meredith and many 
others." At the third stage the reporter knows 
at last who Mr. George Meredith is. Having 
seen an advertisement of one of his books, and 
being pretty sure that the public has read none of 
them, he refers to him as "Mr. George Meredith, 
the well-known novelist." The fourth and final 
stage, beyond the reach of all but the favoured 
few, is arrived at when the reporter can leave the 
name to his public unticketed, and says again, 
"Among those present was Mr. George Mere- 
dith." 

The third stage is easy to reach — indeed, too 
easy. The "well-known actresses" are not Ellen 
Terry, Irene Vanbrugh and Marie Tempest, but 
Miss Birdie Vavasour, who has discovered a new 
way of darkening the hair, and Miss Girlie de 
Tracy, who has been arrested for shop-lifting. In 
the same way, the more the Press insists that a 
writer is "well-known," the less hope will he have 
that the public has heard of him. Better far to 
remain at the second stage, and to flatter one- 
self that one has really arrived at the fourth. 

But my friend Sidney Mandragon is, indeed, at 
the final stage now, for he had been "the well- 



174 Not That It Matters 

known writer" for at least a dozen years pre- 
viously. Of course, he has been helped by his 
name. Shakespeare may say what he likes, but 
a good name goes a long way in the writing 
profession. It was my business at one time to 
consider contributions for a certain paper, and 
there was one particular contributor whose work 
I approached with an awe begotten solely of his 
name. It was not exactly Milton, and not exactly 
Carlyle, and not exactly Charles Lamb, but it was 
a sort of mixture of all three and of many other 
famous names thrown in, so that, without hav- 
ing seen any of his work printed elsewhere, I felt 
that I could not take the risk of refusing it my- 
self. ^'^This is a good man," I would say before 
beginning his article; *'this man obviously has 
style. And I shouldn't be surprised to hear that 
he was an authority on fishing." I wish I could 
remember his name now, and then you would 
see for yourself. 

Well, take Mr. Hugh Walpole (if he will al- 
low me). It is safe to say that, when Mr. Wal- 
pole's first book came out, the average reader 
felt vaguely that she had heard of him before. 
She hadn't actually read his famous Letters, but 
she had often wanted to, and — or was that his 
uncle? Anyway, she had often heard people 



The Path to Glory 175 

talking about him. What a very talented family 
it was! In the same way Sidney Mandragon has 
had the great assistance of one of the two Chris- 
dan names which carry weight in journalism. 
The other, of course, is Harold. If you are 
Sidney or Harold, the literary world is before you. 

Another hall-mark by which we can tell 
whether a man has arrived or not is provided by 
the interview. If (say) a Lepidopterlst is just 
beginning his career, nobody bothers about his 
opinions on anything. If he is moderately well- 
known in his profession, the papers will seek his 
help wTienever his own particular subject comes 
up in the day's news. There is a suggestion, 
perhaps, in Parliament that butterflies should be 
muzzled, and "Our Representative" promptly 
calls upon *'the well-known Lepidopterlst" to ask 
what he thinks about It. But if he be of an es- 
tablished reputation, then his professional opinion 
is no longer sought. What the world Is eager for 
now is to be told his views on Sunday Games, 
the Decadence of the Theatre or Bands in the 
Parks. 

The modern advertising provides a new scale 
of values. No doubt Mr. Pelman offers his cele- 
brated hundred guineas' fee equally to all his 
victims, but we may be pretty^ sure that in his 



176 Not That It Matters 

business-like brain he has each one of them nicely 
labelled, a Gallant Soldier being good for so 
much new business, a titled Man of Letters being 
good for slightly less; and that real Fame is best 
measured by the number of times that one's un- 
biased views on Pelmanism (or Tonics or Hair- 
Restorers) are considered to be worth reprinting. 
In this matter my friend Mandragon is doing 
nicely. For a suitable fee he is prepared to at- 
tribute his success to anything in reason, and his 
confession of faith can count upon a place in 
every full-page advertisement of the mixture, and 
frequently in the odd half-columns. I never quite 
understand why a tonic which has tightened up 
Mandragon's fibres, or a Mind-Training System 
which has brought General Blank's intellect to its 
present pitch, should be accepted more greedily 
by the man-in-the-street than a remedy which has 
only proved its value in the case of his undistin- 
guished neighbour, but then I can never under- 
stand quite a number of things. However, that 
doesn't matter. All that matters at the moment 
is that Mr. Sidney Mandragon has now achieved 
glory. Probably the papers have already pigeon- 
holed his obituary notice. It Is a pleasing thought. 



A Problem in Ethics. 

LIFE is full of little problems, which arise 
suddenly and find one wholly unprepared 
with a solution. For instance, you travel down 
to Wimbledon on the District Railway — first-class, 
let us suppose, because it is your birthday. On 
your arrival you find that you have lost your 
ticket. Now, doubtless there is some sort of 
recognized business to be gone through which 
relieves you of the necessity of paying again. 
You produce an affidavit of a terribly affirmative 
nature, together with your card and a testimonial 
from a beneficed member of the Church of Eng- 
land. Or you conduct a genial correspondence 
with the traffic manager which spreads itself over 
six months. To save yourself this bother you 
simply tell the collector that you haven't a ticket 
and have come from Charing Cross. Is it neces- 
sary to add ''first-class?" 

Of course one has a strong feeling that one 
ought to, but I think a still stronger feeling 
that one isn't defrauding the railway company if 
one doesn't. (I will try not to get so many 

177 



178 Not That It Matters 

"ones" into my next sentence.) For you may- 
argue fairly that you established your right to 
travel first-class when you stepped into the car- 
riage with your ticket — and, it may be, had it ex- 
amined therein by an inspector. All that you 
want to do now is to establish your right to leave 
the Wimbledon platform for the purer air of the 
common. And you can do this perfectly easily 
with a third-class ticket. 

However, this is a problem which will only arise 
if you are careless with your property. But how- 
ever careful you are, it may happen to you at 
any moment that you become suddenly the owner 
of a shilling with a hole in it. 

I am such an owner. I entered into possession 
a week ago — Heaven knows who played the 
thing off on me. As soon as I made the discovery 
I went into a tobacconist's and bought a box of 
matches. 

"This," he said, looking at me reproachfully, 
"is a shilling with a hole in it." 

"I know," I said, "but it's all right, thanks. 
I don't want to wear it any longer. The fact is, 

Joanna has thrown me However, I needn't 

go into that." 

He passed it back to me. 

"I am afraid I can't take it," he said 



A Problem in Ethics 179 

"Why not? / managed to.'* 

However, I had to give him one without a hole 
before he would let me out of his shop. Next 
time I was more thoughtful. I handed three to 
the cashier at my restaurant in payment of lunch, 
and the ventilated one was in the middle. He 
saw the joke of it just as I was escaping down the 
stairs. 

"Hi!" he said, "this shilling has a hole in it." 

I went back and looked at it. Sure enough it 
had. 

"Well, that's funny," I said. "Did you drop it, 
or what?" 

He handed the keepsake back to me. He also 
had something of reproach in his eye. 

"Thanks, very much," I said. "I wouldn't 

have lost it for worlds ; Emily But I mustn't 

bore you with the story. Good day to you." 
And I gave him a more solid coin and went. 

Well, that's how we are at present. A more 
unscrupulous person than myself would have 
palmed It off long ago. He would have told him- 
self with hateful casuistry that the coin was none 
the worse for the air-hole in It, and that, if every- 
body who came into possession of it pressed it 
on to the next man, nobody would be injured by 
its circulation. But I cannot argue like this. It 



i8o Not That It Matters 

pleases me to give my shilling a run with the 
others sometimes. I like to put it down on a 
counter with one or two more, preferably in 
the middle of them where the draught cannot 
blow through It ; but I should indeed be surprised 
— I mean sorry — If It did not come back to me at 
once. 

There Is one thing, anyhow, that I will not da. 
I will not give It to a waiter or a taxi-driver or 
to anybody else as a tip. If you estimate the 
market value of a shilling with a hole in it at 
anything from ninepence to fourpence according 
to the owner's chances of getting rid of It, then 
it might be considered possibly a handsome, any- 
how an adequate, tip for a driver; but somehow 
the idea does not appeal to me at all. For if 
the recipient did not see the hole, you would feel 
that you had been unnecessarily generous to him, 
and that one last effort to have got It off on to a 
shopkeeper would have been wiser; while if he 
did see It — well, we know what cabmen are. He 
couldn't legally object, it is a voluntary gift on 
your part, and even regarded as a contribution to 

his watch chain worthy of thanks, but Well, 

I don't like it. I don't think it's sportsmanlike. 

However, I have an idea at last. I know a 
small boy who owns some lead soldiers. I pro- 



A Problem in Ethics i8i 

pose to borrow one of these — a corporal or per- 
haps a sergeant — and boil him down, and then 
fill up the hole in the shilling with lead. Shillings, 
you know, are not solid silver; oh no, they have 
^alloy in them. This one will have a little more 
than usual perhaps. One cannot tie oneself 
down to an ounce or two. 

We set out, I believe, to discuss the morals of 
the question. It is a most interesting subject. 



The Happiest Half-Hours of Life 

YESTERDAY I should have gone back to 
school, had I been a hundred years younger. 

My most frequent dream nowadays — or nowa- 
nights I suppose I should say — is that I am back 
at school, and trying to construe difficult passages 
from Greek authors unknown to me. That they 
are unknown is my own fault, as will be pointed 
out to me sternly in a moment. Meanwhile I 
stand up and gaze blankly at the text, wondering 
how it is that I can have forgotten to prepare it. 
*'Er — him the — er — him the — the er many-wiled 
Odysseus — ^hV^m — then, him addressing, the 
many-wiled Odysseus — er — addressed. Er — er 

— ^the er '* And then, sweet relief, I wake 

up. That is one of my dreams; and another is 
that I am trying to collect my books for the 
next school and that an algebra, or whatever you 
like, is missing. The bell has rung, as it seems 
hours ago, I am searching my shelves desperately, 
I am diving under my table, behind the chair . . . 
I shall be late, I shall be late, late, late. . . . 

No doubt I had these bad moments in real life 
182 



The Happiest Half-Hours of Life 183 

a hundred years ago. Indeed I must have had 
them pretty often that they should come back 
to me so regularly now. But it is curious that I 
should never dream that I am going back to 
school, for the misery of going back must have 
left a deeper mark on my mind than all the little 
accidental troubles of life when there. I was very 
happy at school; but oh! the utter wretchedness 
of the last day of the holidays. i 

One began to be apprehensive on the Monday, 
Foolish visitors would say sometimes on the Mon- 
day, "When are you going back to school?'* and 
make one long to kick them for their tactlessness. 
As well might they have said to a condemned 
criminal, "When are you going to be hanged?" 
or, "What kind of — er — knot do you think 
they'll use?" Throughout Monday and Tues- 
day we played the usual games, amused ourselves 
in the usual way, but with heavy hearts. In the 
excitement of the moment we would forget and 
be happy, and then suddenly would come the 
thought, "We're going back on Wednesday." 

And on Tuesday evening we would bring a 
moment's comfort to ourselves by imagining that 
we were not going back on the morrow. Our 
favourite dream was that the school was burnt 
down early on Wednesday morning, and that a 



1 84 Not That It Matters 

telegram arrived at breakfast apologizing for the 
occurrence, and pointing out that it would be 
several months before even temporary accom- 
modation could be erected. No Vandal destroyed 
historic buildings so light-heartedly as we. And 
on Tuesday night we prayed that, if the light- 
nings of Heaven failed us, at least a pestilence 
should be sent in aid. Somehow, somehow, let 
the school be uninhabitable I 

But the telegram never came. We woke on 
Wednesday morning as wakes the murderer on 
his last day. We took a dog or two for a walk; 
we pretended to play a game of croquet. After 
lunch we donned the badges of our servitude. 
The comfortable, careless, dirty flannels were 
taken off, and the black coats and stiff white 
collars put on. At 3.30 an early tea was ready 
for us — something rather special, a last mockery 
of holiday. (Dressed crab, I remember, on one 
occasion, and I travelled with my back to the 
engine after it — a position I have never dared to 
assume since.) Then good-byes, tips, kisses, a 
last look, and — the 4.10 was puffing out of the 
station. And nothing, nothing had happened. 

I can remember thinking in the train how 
unfair it all was. Fifty-two weeks in the year, 
I said to myself, and only fifteen of them spent 



The Happiest Half-Hours of Life 185 

at home. A child snatched from his mother at 
nine, and never again given back to her for more 
than two months at a time. *'Is this Russia?" 
I said; and, getting no answer, could only com- 
fort myself with the thought, "This day twelve 
weeks !" 

And once the incredible did happen. It was 
through no intervention of Providence; no, it 
was entirely our own doing. We got near some 
measles, and for a fortnight we were kept in quar- 
antine. I can say truthfully that we never spent 
a duller two weeks. There seemed to be nothing 
to do at all. The Idea that we were working 
had to be fostered by our remaining shut up 
in one room most of the day, and within the 
limits of that room we found very little In the 
way of amusement. We were bored extremely. 
And always we carried with us the thought of 
Smith or Robinson taking our place in the Junior 
House team and making hundreds of runs. . . . 

Because, of course we were very happy at 
school really. The trouble was that we were so 
much happier in the holidays. I have had many 
glorious moments since I left school, but I have 
no doubt as to what have been the happiest half- 
hours In my life. They were the half-hours on 
the last day of term before we started home. 



1 86 Not That It Matters 

We spent them on a lunch of our own ordering. 
It was the first decent meal we had had for weeks, 
and when It was over there were all the holidays 
before us. Life may have better half-hours than 
that to offer, but I have not met them. 



Natural Science. 

IT is when Parliament is not sitting that the 
papers are most interesting to read. I have 
found an item of news to-day which would never 
have been given publicity In the busy times, and 
It has moved me strangely. Here It Is, backed 
by the authority of Dr. Chalmers Mitchell: — 

*'The caterpillar of the puss-moth, not satisfied 
with Nature's provisions for its safety, makes 
faces at young birds, and is said to alarm them 
considerably.'' 

I like that *'is said to." Probably the young 
bird would deny Indignantly that he was alarmed, 
and would explain that he was only going away 
because he suddenly remembered that he had an 
engagement on the croquet lawn, or that he had 
forgotten his umbrella. But whether he alarms 
them or not, the fact remains that the caterpillar 
of the puss-moth does make faces at young birds ; 
and we may be pretty sure that, even if he began 
the practice in self-defence, the habit is one that 
has grown on him. Indeed, I can see him 
actually looking out for a thrush's nest, and then 

187 



i88 Not That It Matters 

climbing up to it, popping his head over the edge 
suddenly and making a face. Probably, too, the 
mother birds frighten their young ones by telHng 
them that, if they aren't good, the puss-moth 
caterpillar will be after them; while the poor 
caterpillar himself, never having known a 
mother's care, has had no one to tell him that 
if he goes on making such awful faces he will 
be struck like that one day. 

These delvings into natural history bring back 
my youth very vividly. I never kept a puss- 
moth, but I had a goat-moth which ate its way 
out of a match-box, and as far as I remember 
took all the matches with it. There were cater- 
pillars, though, of a gentler nature who stayed 
with me, and of these some were obliging enough 
to turn into chrysalises. Not all by any means. 
A caterpillar is too modest to care about chang- 
ing in public. To conduct his metamorphosis in 
some quiet corner — where he is not poked every 
morning to see if he is getting stiffer — is what 
your caterpillar really wants. Mine had no pri- 
vate life to mention. They were as much be- 
fore the world as royalty or an actress. And 
even those who brought off the first event safely 
never emerged into the butterfly world. Some- 
thing would always happen to them. "Have you 



Natural Science 189 

seen my chrysalis?" we used to ask each other. 
"I left him In the bathroom yesterday." 

But what I kept most successfully were min- 
erals. One is or is not a successful mineralogist ac- 
cording as one is or is not allowed a geological 
hammer. I had a geological hammer. To scour 
the cliffs armed with a geological hammer and a 
bag for specimens is to be a king among boys. 
The only specimen I can remember taking with my 
hammer was a small piece of shin. That was 
enough, however, to end my career as a success- 
ful mineralogist. As an unsuccessful one I perse- 
vered for some months, and eventually had a col- 
lection of eighteen units. They were put out on 
the bed every evening in order of size, and 
ranged from a large lump of Iceland spar down 
to a small dead periwinkle. In those days I could 
have told you what granite was made of. In 
those days I had over my bed a map of the geo- 
logical strata of the district — in different colours 
like a chocolate macaroon. And in those days I 
knew my way to the Geological Museum. 

As a botanist I never really shone, but two of 
us joined an open-air course and used to be taken 
expeditions into Kew Gardens and such places, 
where our lecturer explained to his pupils — all 
grown-up save ourselves — the less recondite 



190 Not That It Matters 

mysteries. There was one golden Saturday when 
we missed the rendezvous at Pinner and had a 
picnic by ourselves instead; and, after that, many 
other golden Saturdays when some unaccountable 
accident separated us from the party. I re- 
member particularly a day in Highgate Woods — 
a good place for losing a botanical lecturer in; if 
you had been there, you would have seen two little 
boys very content, lying one each side of a large 
stone slab, racing caterpillars against each other. 
But there was one episode in my career as a 
natural scientist — a career whose least details are 
brought back by the magic word, caterpillar — 
over which I still go hot with the sense of failure. 
This was an attempt to stuff a toad. I don't 
know to this day if toads can be stuffed, but when 
our toad died he had to be commemorated in some 
way, and, failing a marble statue, it seemed good 
to stuff him. It was when we had got the skin off 
him that we began to realize our difficulties. I 
don't know if you have had the skin of a fair- 
sized toad in your hand; if so, you will under- 
stand that our first feeling was one of surprise 
that a whole toad could ever have got into it. 
There seemed to be no shape about the thing at 
all. You could have carried it — no doubt we 
did, I have forgotten — in the back of a watch. 



Natural Science 191 

But it had lost alF likeness to a toad, and it was 
obvious that stuffing meant nothing to it. 

Of course, little boys ought not to skin toads 
and carry geological hammers and deceive learned 
professors of botany; I know it is wrong. And 
of course caterpillars of the puss-moth variety 
oughtn't to make faces at timid young thrushes. 
But It is just these things which make such pleas- 
ant memories afterwards — when professors and 
toads are departed, when the hammers He rusty 
in the coal cellar, and when the young thrushes 
are grown up to be quite big birds. 



On Going Dry. 

THERE are fortunate mortals who can al- 
ways comfort themselves with a cliche. If 
any question arises as to the moral value of Rac- 
ing, whether in war-time or in peace-time, they 
will murmur something about "improving the 
breed of horses," and sleep afterwards with an 
easy conscience. To one who considers how 
many millions of people are engaged upon this im- 
portant work, it is surprising that nothing more 
notable in the way of a super-horse has as yet 
emerged; one would have expected at least by 
this time something which combined the flying- 
powers of the hawk with the diving-powers of 
the seal. No doubt this is what the followers of 
the Colonel's Late Wire are aiming at, and even 
if they have to borrow ten shilHngs from the till 
in the good cause, they feel that possibly by means 
of that very ten shillings Nature has approxi- 
mated a little more closely to the desired animal. 
Supporters of Hunting, again, will tell you, 
speaking from inside knowledge, that "the fox 

192 



On Going Dry 193 

likes it," and one is left breathless at the thought 
of the altruism of the human race, which will 
devote so much time and money to amusing a 
small, bushy-tailed four-legged friend who might 
otherwise be bored. And the third member of 
the Triple AlHance, which had made England 
what it is, is Beer, and in support of Beer there 
is also a cliche ready. Talk to anybody about 
Intemperance, and he will tell you solemnly, as 
if this disposed of the trouble, that *'one can 
just as easily be intemperate in other matters as 
in the matter of alcohol." After which, it seems 
almost a duty to a broad-minded man to go out 
and get drunk. 

It is, of course, true that we can be intemperate 
in eating as well as in drinking, but the results 
of the intemperance would appear to be different. 
After a fifth help of rice-pudding one does not 
become over-familiar with strangers, nor does an 
extra slice of ham inspire a man to beat his wife. 
After five pints of beer (or fifteen, or fifty) a 
man will *'go anywhere in reason, but he won't go 
home"; after five helps of rice-pudding, I im- 
agine, home would seem to him the one-desired 
haven. The two intemperances may be equally 
blameworthy, but they are not equally offensive 
to the community. Yet for some reason over- 



194 Not That It Matters 

eating Is considered the mark of the beast, and 
over-drinking the mark of rather a fine fellow. 

The poets and other gentlemen who have 
written so much romantic nonsense about "good 
red wine" and "good brown ale" are responsible 
for this. I admit that a glass of Burgundy is a 
more beautiful thing than a blancmange, but I do 
not think that it follows that a surfeit of one is 
more heroic than a surfeit of the other. There 
may be a divinity in the grape which excuses ex- 
cess, but If so, one would expect it to be there even 
before the grape had been trodden on by some- 
body else. Yet no poet ever hymned the man 
who tucked Into the dessert, or told him that he 
was by way of becoming a jolly good fellow. He 
Is only by way of becoming a pig. 

"It Is the true, the blushful Hippocrene." To 
tell oneself this Is to pardon everything. How- 
ever unpleasant a drunken man may seem at first 
sight, as soon as one realizes that he has merely 
been putting away a blushful HIppocrene, one 
ceases to be angry with him. If Keats or some- 
body had said of a piece of underdone mutton, 
"It is the true, the blushful Canterbury," in- 
digestion would carry a more romantic air, and 
at the third helping one could claim to be a bit 



On Going Dry 195 

of a devil. "The beaded bubbles winking at the 
brim" — this might also have been sung of a 
tapioca-pudding, in which case a couple of tapioca- 
puddings would certainly qualify the recipient as 
one of the boys. If only the poets had praised 
over-eating rather than over-drinking, how much 
pleasanter the streets would be on festival nights I 
I suppose that I have already said enough to 
have written myself down a Temperance Fanatic, 
a Thin-Blooded Cocoa-Drinker, and a number of 
other things equally contemptible; which is all 
very embarrassing to a man who is composing at 
the moment on port, and who gets entangled in 
the skin of cocoa whenever he tries to approach 
it. But if anything could make me take kindly 
to cocoa, it would be the sentimental rubbish 
which is written about the "manliness" of drink- 
ing alcohol. It is no more manly to drink beer 
(not even if you call it good brown ale) than 
It is to drink beef-tea. It may be more healthy; 
I know nothing about that, nor, from the diversity 
of opinion expressed, do the doctors; It may be 
cheaper, more thirst-quenching, anything you like. 
But it Is a thing the village idiot can do — and 
often does, without becoming thereby the spiritual 
comrade of Robin Hood, King Harry the Fifth, 



196 Not That It Matters 

Drake, and all the other heroes who (if we are 
to believe the Swill School) have made old Eng- 
land great on beer. 

But to doubt the spiritual virtues of alcohol is 
not to be a Prohibitionist. For my own sake I 
want neither England nor America dry. Whether 
I want them dry for the sake of England and 
America I cannot quite decide. But if I ever do 
come to a decision, it will not be influenced by 
that other cliche, which is often trotted out com- 
placently, as if it were something to thank Heaven 
for: "You can't make people moral by Act of 
Parliament." It is not a question of making 
them moral, but of keeping them from alcohol. 
It may be a pity to do this, but it is obviously 
possible, just as it is possible to keep them — that 
is to say, the overwhelming majority of them — 
from opium. Nor shall I be Influenced by the 
argument that such prohibition Is outside the au- 
thority of a Government. For if a Government 
can demand a man's life for reasons of foreign 
policy, it can surely demand his whisky for rea- 
sons of domestic policy; if it can call upon him 
to start fighting, it can call upon him to stop 
drinking. 

But if opium and alcohol is prohibited, you say, 
why not tobacco? When tobacco is mentioned, 



On Going Dry 197 

I feel like the village Socialist, who was quite 
ready to share two theoretical cows with his 
neighbour, but when asked if the theory applied 
also to pigs, answered indignantly, *'What are 
you talking about — I've got two pigs I" I could 
bear an England which "went dry," but an Eng- 
land which "went out" ! So before assenting 

to the right of a Government to rob the working- 
man of his beer, I have to ask myself if I assent 
to its right to rob me of my pipe. Well, if it 
were agreed by a majority of the community (in 
spite of all my hymns to Nicotine) that England 
would be happier without tobacco, then I think I 
should agree also. But I might feel that I should 
be happier without England. Just a little way 
without — the Isle of Man, say. 



A Misjudged Game. 

CHESS has this in common with making 
poetry, that the desire for it comes upon the 
amateur in gusts. It is very easy for him not 
to make poetry; sometimes he may go for months 
without writing a line of it. But when once he 
is delivered of an ode, then the desire to write 
another ode is strong upon him. A sudden pas- 
sion for rhyme masters him, and must work itself 
out. It will be all right in a few weeks; he will 
go back to prose or bills-of-parcels or whatever 
is his natural method of expressing himself, none 
the worse for his adventure. But he will have 
gained this knowledge for his future guidance — 
that poems never come singly. 

Every two or three years I discover the game 
of chess. In normal times when a man says to 
me, "Do you play chess?" I; answer coldly, 
"Well, I know the moves." "Would you like a 
game?" he asks, and I say, "I don^t think I 
will, thanks very much. I hardly ever play." 
And there the business ends. But once in two 
years, or it may be three, circumstances are too 

198 



A Misjudged Game 199 

strong for me. I meet a man so keen or a 
situation so dull that politeness or boredom leads 
me to accept. The board Is produced, I remind 
myself that the queen stands on a square of 
her own colour, and that the knight goes next to 
the castle; I push forward the king's pawn two 
squares, and we are off. Yes, we are off; but 
not for one game only. For a month at least I 
shall dream of chess at night and make excuses to 
play It In the day. For a month chess will be 
even more to me than golf or billiards — games 
which I adore because I am so bad at them. For 
a month, starting from yesterday when I was In- 
veigled Into a game, you must regard me, please, 
as a chess maniac. 

Among the small boys with no head for the 
game I should probably be described as a clever 
player. If my opponent only learnt yesterday, 
and Is still a little doubtful as to what a knight 
can do, I know one or two rather good tricks for 
removing his queen. My subtlest stroke is to wait 
until Her Majesty is in front of the king, and 
then to place my castle in front of her, with a 
pawn in support. Sometimes I forget the pawn 
and he takes my castle, in which case I try to 
look as if the loss of my castle was the one neces- 
sary preliminary to my plan of campaign, and 



200 Not That It Matters 

that now we were off. When he is busy on one 
side of the board, I work a knight up on the 
other, and threaten two of his pieces simultan- 
eously. To the extreme novice I must seem 
rather resourceful. 

But then I am an old hand at the game. 
My career dates from — well, years ago when I 
won my house championship at school. This 
championship may have carried a belt with it; 
I have forgotten. But there was certainly a 
prize — a prize of five solid shillings, supposing 
the treasurer had managed to collect the sub- 
scriptions. In the year when I won it I was 
also treasurer. I assure you that the quickness 
and skill necessary for winning the competition 
were as nothing to that necessary for collecting 
the money. If any pride remains to me over 
that affair, if my name is written in letters of 
fire in the annals of our house chess club, it is 
because I actually obtained the five shillings. 

After this the game did not trouble me for 
some time. But there came a day when a friend 
and I lunched at a restaurant in which chess- 
boards formed as permanent a part of the fur- 
niture of the dining tables as the salt and mus- 
tard. Partly in joke, because it seemed to be 
the etiquette of the building, we started a game. 



A Misjudged Game 201 

We stayed there two hours . . . and the fever 
remained with me for two months. Another year 
or so of normal development followed. Then I 
caught influenza and spent dull days in bed. 
Nothing can be worse for an influenza victim than 
chess, but I suppose my warders did not realize 
how much I suffered under the game. Anyhow, 
I played it all day and dreamed of it all night — 
a riot of games in which all the people I knew 
moved diagonally and up and down, took each 
other, and became queens. 

And now I have played again, and am once 
more an enthusiast. You will agree with me, 
will you not, that it is a splendid game? People 
mock at it. They say that it is not such good 
exercise as cricket or golf. How wrong they 
are. That it brings the same muscles into play 
as does cricket I do not claim for it. Each game 
develops a different set of sinews; but what chess- 
player who has sat with an extended forefinger 
on the head of his queen for five minutes, before 
observing the enemy's bishop in the distance and 
bringing back his piece to safety — what chess- 
player, I say, will deny that the muscles of the 
hand ridge up like lumps of iron after a month 
at the best of games? What chess-player who has 
stretched his arm out in order to open with the 



202 Not That It Matters 

Ruy Lopez gambit, who has then withdrawn it 
as the possibihties of the Don Quixote occur to 
him, and who has finally, after another forward 
and backward movement, decided to rely upon the 
bishop's declined pawn — what chess-player, I ask, 
will not affirm that the biceps are elevated by 
this noblest of pastimes? And, finally, what 
chess-player, who in making too eagerly the 
crowning move, has upset with his elbow the 
victims of the preliminary skirmishing, so that 
they roll upon the floor — what chess-player, who 
has to lean down and pick them up, will not 
be the better for the strain upon his diaphragm? 
No; say what you will against chess, but do not 
mock at it for its lack of exercise. 

Yet there is this against it. The courtesies of 
the game are few. I think that this must be 
why the passion for it leaves me after a month. 
When at cricket you are bowled first ball, the 
wicketkeeper can comfort you by murmuring that 
the light is bad; when at tennis your opponent 
forces for the dedans and strikes you heavily un- 
der the eye, he can shout, "Sorry!" when at golf 
you reach a bunker in 4 and take 3 to get out, 
your partner can endear himself by saying "Hard 
luck'*; but at chess everything that the enemy 
does to you is deliberate. He cannot say. 



A Misjudged Game 203 

"Sorry!" as he takes your knight; he does not 
call It hard luck when your king Is surrounded 
by vultures eager for his death; and though It 
would be kindly In him to attribute to the bad 
light the fact that you never noticed his castle 
leaning against your queen, yet it would be quite 
against the etiquette of the game. 

Indeed, It is Impossible to win gracefully at 
chess. No man yet has said "Mate I" in a voice 
which failed to sound to his opponent bitter, 
boastful and malicious. It is the tone of that 
voice which, after a month, I find it impossible 
any longer to stand. 



A Doubtful Character. 

1FIND it difficult to believe in Father Christ- 
mas. If he is the jolly old gentleman he is 
always said to be, why doesn't he behave as such? 
How is it that the presents go so often to the 
wrong people? 

This is no personal complaint; I speak for the 
world. The rich people get the rich presents, 
and the poor people get the poor ones. That 
may not be the fault of Father Christmas; he 
may be under contract for a billion years to de- 
liver all presents just as they are addressed; but 
how can he go on smiling? He must long to 

alter all that. There is Miss Priscilla A 

who gets five guineas worth of the best every 

year from Mr. Cyril B who hopes to be her 

heir. Mustn't that make Father Christmas mad? 
Yet he goes down the chimney with it just the 
same. When his contract is over, and he has a 
free hand, he'll arrange something about that, 
I'm sure. 

If he is the jolly old gentleman of the pictures 
his sense of humour must trouble him. He must 

204 



A Doubtful Character 205 

be itching to have jokes with the parcels. "Only 
just this once," he would plead. ''Let me give 
Mrs. Brown the safety-razor, and Mr. Brown the 
night-dress case; I swear I won't touch any of 
the others." Of course that wouldn't be a very 
subtle joke; but jolly old gentlemen with white 
beards aren't very subtle in their humour. They 
lean to the broader effects^ — the practical joke 
and the pun. I can imagine Father Christmas 
making his annual pun on the word "reindeer," 
and the eldest reindeer making a feeble attempt 
to smile The younger ones wouldn't so much as 
try. Yet he would make it so gaily that you 
would love him even if you couldn't laugh. 

Coming down chimneys is dangerous work for 
white beards, and if I believed in him I should 
ask myself how he manages to keep so clean. I 
suppose his sense of humour suggested the chim- 
ney to him in the first place, and for a year or 
two it was the greatest joke in the world. But 
now he must wish sometimes that he came in by 
the door or the window. Some chimneys are 
very dirty for white beards. 

Have you noticed that children, who hang up 
their stockings, always get lots of presents, and 
that we grown-ups, who don't hang up our stock- 
ings, never get any? This makes me think that 



2o6 Not That It Matters 

perhaps after all Father Christmais has some 
say in the distribution. When he sees an empty 
stocking he pops in a few things on his own 
account — with ''from Aunt Emma" pinned on 
to them. Then you write to Aunt Emma to thank 
her for her delightful present, and she is so 
ashamed of herself for not having sent you one 
that she never lets on about it. But when Father 
Christmas doesn't see a stocking, he just leaves 
you the embroidei*ed tobacco pouch from your 
sister and the postal order from your rich uncle, 
and is glad to get out of the house. 

Of his attitude towards Christmas cai-ds I 
cannot speak with certainty, but I fancy that he 
does not bring these down the chimney too; the 
truth being, probably, that it is he who composes 
the mottoes on them, and that with the customary 
modesty of the author he leaves the distribution 
of them to others. "The old, old wish — a merry 
Christmas and a happy New Year" he considers 
to be his masterpiece so far, but "A righte merrie 
Christemasse" runs it close. "May happy hours 
be yours" is another epigram in the same vein 
which has met with considerable success. You 
can understand how embarrassing it would be to 
an author if he had to cart round his own works, 
and practically to force them on people. This is 



A Doubtful Character 207 

why you so rarely find a Christmas card in your 
stocking. 

There is one other thing at which Father Christ- 
mas draws the line; he will not deliver venison. 
The reindeer say it comes too near home to them. 
But, apart from this, he is never so happy as 
when dealing with hampers. He would put a 
plum-pudding into every stocking if he could, for 
like all jolly old gentlemen with nice white beards 
he loves to think of people enjoying their food. 
I am not sure that he holds much with chocolates, 
although he is entrusted with so many boxes that 
he has learnt to look on them with kindly tol- 
erance. But the turkey idea, I imagine (though I 
cannot speak with authority), the turkey idea 
was entirely his own. Nothing like turkey for 
making the beard grow. 

If I believed in Father Christmas I should ask 
myself what he does all the summer — all the 
year, indeed, after his one day is over. The rein- 
deer, of course, are put out to grass. But where 
is Father Christmas? Does he sleep for fifty-one 
weeks? Does he shave, and mix with us mor- 
tals? Or does he — ^yes, that must be It — does he 
spend the year in training. In keeping down his fig- 
ure? Chimney work Is terribly trying, the figure 
wants watching If one Is to carry it through sue- 



2o8 Not That It Matters 

cessfully. This is especially so in the case of jolly 
old gentlemen with white beards. I can see 
Father Christmas, as soon as his day is over, 
taking himself off to the Equator and running 
round and round it. By next December he is in 
splendid condition. 

When his billion years are over, when his 
contract expires and he is allowed a free hand 
with the presents, I suppose I shall not be ahve 
to take part in the distribution. But none the 
less I like to think of the things I should get. 
There are at least half a dozen things which I 
deserve, and Father Christmas knows it. In 
any equitable scheme of allotment I should come 
out well. "Half a minute," he would say, "I 
must just put these cigars aside for the gentle- 
man who had the picture post card last year. 
What have you got there? The country cottage 
and the complete edition of Meredith? Ah yes, 
perhaps he'd better have those too." 

That would be something like a Father 
Christmas. 



Thoughts on Thermometers. 

OUR thermometer went down to 1 1 deg. the 
other night. The excitement was intense. 
It was, of course, the first person down to break- 
fast who rushed into the garden and made the 
discovery, and as each of us appeared he was 
greeted with the news. 

"I say, do you know there were twenty-one 
degrees of frost last night?" 

"Really? By Jove!" 

We were all very happy and talkative at 
breakfast — an event rare enough to be chronicled. 
It was not that we particularly wanted a frost, 
but that we felt that, if it was going to freeze, it 
might as well do it properly — so as to show other 
nations that England was still to be reckoned 
with. And there was also the feeling that if the 
thermometer could get down to 1 1 deg. It might 
some day get down to zero; and then perhaps 
the Thames would be frozen over again at West- 
minster, and the papers would be full of strange 
news, and — generally speaking — life would be a 
little different from the ordinary. In a word, 

209 



210 Not That It Matters 

there would be a chance of something "happen- 
ing" — which, I take it, is why one buys a ther- 
mometer and watches it so carefully. 

Of course, every nice thermometer has a device 
for registering the maximum and minimum tem- 
peratures, which can only be set with a magnet. 
This gives you an opportunity of using a magnet 
in ordinary life, an opportunity which occurs all 
too seldom. Indeed, I can think of no other oc- 
casion on which it plays any important part in 
one's affairs. It would be interesting to know if 
the sale of magnets exceeds the sale of thermome- 
ters, and if so, why? — and it would also be in- 
teresting to know why magnets are always 
painted red, as if they were dangerous, or be- 
longed to the Government, or — but this Is a 
question into which it is impossible to go now. 
My present theme is thermometers. 

Our thermometer (which went down to ii 
deg. the other night) is not one of your common 
mercury ones; it is filled with a pink fluid which 
I am told is alcohol, though I have never tried. 
It hangs in the kitchen garden. This gives you 
an excuse in the summer for going into the kitchen 
garden and leaning against the fruit trees. "Let's 
go and look at the thermometer" you say to your 
guest from London, and just for the moment he 



Thoughts on Thermometers 211 

thinks that the amusements of the country are 
not very dramatic. But after a day or two he 
learns that what you really mean is, "Let's go 
and see if any fruit has blown down in the night/^' 
And he takes care to lean against the right tree. 
An elaborate subterfuge, but necessary if your 
gardener is at all strict. 

But whether your thermometer hangs in the 
kitchen garden or at the back of the shrubbery, 
you must recognize one thing about it, namely, 
that it is an open-air plant. There are people 
who keep thermometers shut up indoors, which 
is both cruel and unnecessary. When you com- 
plain Ihat the library is a little chilly — as surely 
you are entitled to — they look at the thermometer 
nailed to the Henry Fielding shelf and say, "Oh 
no; I don't think so. It's sixty-five." As if any- 
body wanted a thermometer to know if a room 
were cold or not. These people insult thermo- 
meters and their guests further by placing one of 
the former in the bathroom soap-dish, in order 
that the latter may discover whether it is a hot or 
cold bath which they are having. All decent peo- 
ple know that a hot bath is one which you can 
just bear to get into, and that a cold bath is one 
which you cannot bear to think of getting into, 
but have to for honour's sake. They do not 



212 Not That It Matters 

want to be told how many degrees Fahrenheit it is. 

The undersized temperature-taker which the 
doctor puts under your tongue before telling you 
to keep warm and take plenty of milk puddings 
is properly despised by every true thermometer- 
lover. Any record which It makes is too personal 
for a breakfast-table topic, and moreover It is a 
thermometer which affords no scope for the 
magnet. Altogether it is a contemptible thing. 
An occasional devotee will bite it in two before 
returning it to its owner, but this is rather a 
strong line to take. It is perhaps best to avoid 
it altogether by not being ill. 

A thermometer must always be treated with 
care, for the mercury once spilt can only be 
replaced with great difficulty. It is considered to 
be one of the most awkward things to pick up 
after dinner, and only a very steady hand will be 
successful. Some people with a gift for han- 
dling mercury or alcohol make their own ther- 
mometers; but even when you have got the stuff 
Into the tube, it is always a question where to 
put tat little figures. So m— h depends upon 
them. 

Now I must tell you the one hereditary falling 
of the thermometer. I had meant to hide it from 
you, but I see that you are determined to have 



Thoughts on Thermometers 213 

it. It IS this: you cannot go up to it and tap 
it. At least you can, but you don't get that feel- 
ing of satisfaction from it which the tapping of 
a barometer gives you. Of course you can always 
put a hot thumb on the bulb and watch the 
mercury run up ; this is satisfying for a short time, 
but it is not the same thing as tapping. And I 
am wrong to say "always," for in some ther- 
mometers — indeed, in ours, alas! — the bulb is 
wired in, so that no falsifying thumb can get to 
work. However, this has its compensations, for 
if no hot thumb can make our thermometer un- 
true to itself, neither can any cold thumb. And 
so when I tell you again that our thermometer 
did go down to 1 1 deg. the other night, you have 
no excuse for not believing that our twenty-one 
degrees of frost was a genuine affair. In fact, 
you will appreciate our excitement at breakfast. 



For a Wet Afternoon. 

LET us consider something seasonable; let us 
consider Indoor games for a moment. 

And by indoor games I do not mean anything 
so serious as bridge and billiards, nor anything so 
commercial as vingt-et-un with fish counters, nor 
anything so strenuous as "bumps." The games 
I mean are those jolly, sociable ones in which 
everybody in the house can join with an equal 
chance of distinction, those friendly games which 
are played with laughter round a fire what time 
the blizzards rattle against the window-pane. 

These games may be divided broadly into two 
classes; namely, paper games and guessing games. 
The Initial disadvantage of the paper game Is 
that pencils have to be found for everybody; gen- 
erally a difficult business. Once they are found, 
there Is no further trouble until the game is over, 
when the pencils have to be collected from every- 
body; generally an impossible business. If you 
are a guest In the house, insist upon a paper 
game, for it gives you a chance of acquiring a 
pencil; if you are the host, consider carefully 

214 



For a Wet Afternoon 215 

whether you would not rather play a guessing 
game. 

But the guessing game has one great dis- 
advantage too. It demands periodically that a 
member of the company should go out by himself 
into the hall and wait there patiently until his 
companions have "thought of something." (It 
may be supposed that he, too, is thinking of some- 
thing in the cold hall, but perhaps not liking to 
say it.) However careful the players are, un- 
pleasantness is bound to arise sometimes over 
this preliminary stage of the game. I knew of 
one case where the people in the room forgot all 
about the lady waiting in the hall and began to 
tell each other ghost stories. The lights were 
turned out, and sitting round the flickering fire 
the most imaginative members of the household 
thrilled their hearers with ghostly tales of the 
dead. Suddenly, in the middle of the story of 
Torfrida of the Towers — a lady who had stran- 
gled her children, and ever afterwards haunted 
the battlements, headless, and in a night-gown — 
the door opened softly, and Miss Robinson en- 
tered to ask how much longer they would be. 
Miss Robinson was wearing a white frock, and 
the effect of her entry was tremendous. 

I remember, too, another evening when we 



2i6 Not That It Matters 

were playing "proverbs." William, who had gone 
outside, was noted for his skill at the game, 
and we were determined to give him something 
difficult; something which hadn't a camel or a 
glass house or a stable door in it. After some 
discussion a member of the company suggested a 
proverb from the Persian, as he alleged. It went 
something like this: "A wise man is kind to his 
dog, but a poor man riseth early in the morn- 
ing." We took his word for it, and, feeling 
certain that William would never guess, called him 
to come in. 

Unfortunately, William, who Is a trifle absent- 
minded, had gone to bed. 

To avoid accidents of this nature it is better 
to play ^'clumps," a guessing game in which the 
procedure is slightly varied. In "clumps" two 
people go Into the hall and think of something, 
while the rest remain before the fire. Thus, 
however long the interval of waiting, all are 
happy; for the people Inside can tell each other 
stories (or, as a last resort, play some other 
game) and the two outside are presumably amus- 
ing themselves In arranging something very diffi- 
cult. Personally I adore clumps ; not only for this 
reason, but because of Its revelation of hidden 
talent. There may be a dozen persons In each 



For a Wet Afternoon 217 

clump, and in theory every one of the dozen is 
supposed to take a hand in the cross-examination, 
but in practice it is always one person who ex- 
tracts the information required by a cataract of 
searching questions. Always one person and gen- 
erally a girl. I love to see her coming out of her 
shell. She has excelled at none of the outdoor 
games perhaps; she has spoken hardly a word at 
meals. In our little company she has scarcely 
seemed to count. But suddenly she awakes into 
life. Clumps is the family game at home; she 
has been brought up on it. In a moment she 
discovers herself as our natural leader, a leader 
whom we follow humbly. And however we may 
spend the rest of our time together, the effect of 
her short hour's triumph will not wholly wear 
away. She is now established. 

But the paper games will always be most pop- 
ular, and once you are over the difficulty of the 
pencils you may play them for hours without 
wearying. But of course you must play the amus- 
ing ones and not the dull ones. The most com- 
mon paper game of all, that of making small 
words out of a big one, has nothing to recom- 
mend it; for there can be no possible amusement 
in hearing somebody else read out **but,'' ''bat," 
"bet," "bin," "ben," and so forth, not even if 



2i8 Not That It Matters 

you spend half an hour discussing whether "ben" 
is really a word. On the other hand your game, 
however amusing, ought to have some finality 
about it; a game is not really a game unless 
somebody can win it. For this reason I cannot 
wholly approve "telegrams." To concoct a tele- 
gram whose words begin with certain selected 
letters of the alphabet, say the first ten, is to 
amuse yourself anyhow and possibly your friends; 
whether you say, "Am bringing camel down early 
Friday. Got hump. Inform Jamrach"; or, 
"Afraid better cancel dinner engagement. Fred 
got horrid indigestion. — Jane." But it is im- 
possible to declare yourself certainly the winner. 
Fortunately, however, there are games which 
combine amusement with a definite result; games 
in which the others can be funny while you can 
get the prize — or, if you prefer it, the other 
way about. 

When I began to write this, the rain was stream- 
ing against the window-panes. It is now quite 
fine. This, you will notice, often happens when 
you decide to play indoor games on a wet after- 
noon. Just as you have found the pencils, the 
sun comes out. 



Declined with Thanks. 

A PARAGRAPH in the papers of last week 
recorded the unusual action of a gentleman 
called Smith (or some such name) who had re- 
fused for reasons of conscience to be made a 
justice of the peace. Smith's case was that the 
commission was offered to him as a reward for 
political services, and that this was a method of 
selecting magistrates of which he did not approve. 
So he showed his contempt for the system by re- 
fusing an honour which most people covet, and 
earned by this such notoriety as the papers can 
give. "Portrait (on page 8) of a gentleman who 
has refused something!" He takes his place with 
Brittlebones in the gallery of freaks. 

The subject for essay has frequently been given, 
"If a million pounds were left to you, how could 
you do most good with it?" Some say they would 
endow hospitals, some that they would establish 
almshouses; there may even be some who would 
go as far as to build half a Dreadnought. But 
there would be a more decisive way of doing good 
than any of these. You might refuse the million 

219 



220 Not That It Matters 

pounds. That would be a shock to the systems 
of the comfortable — a blow struck at the great 
Money God which would make it totter; a thrust 
In defence of pride and freedom such as had not 
been seen before. That would be a moral tonic 
more needed than all the draughts of your newly 
endowed hospitals. Will it ever be administered? 
Well, perhaps when the D.W.T. club has grown 
a little stronger. 

Have you heard of the D.W.T. — the De- 
clined-with-Thanks Club? There are no club 
rooms and not many members, but the balance 
sheet for the last twelve months is wonderful, 
showing that more than £ii,ooo was refused. 
The entrance fee is one hundred guineas and the 
annual subscription fifty guineas; that is to say, 
you must have refused a hundred guineas before 
you can be elected, and you are expected to re- 
fuse another fifty guineas a year while you retain 
membership. It is possible also to compound with 
a life refusal, but the sum Is not fixed, and re- 
mains at the discretion of the committee. 

Baines is a life member. He saved an old lady 
from being run over by a motor bus some years 
ago, and when she died she left him a legacy 
of £1000. Baines wrote to the executors and 
pointed out that he did not go about dragging 



Declined with Thanks 221 

persons from beneath motor buses as a profes^ 
sion; that, if she had offered him £1000 at the 
time, he would have refused it, not being in the 
habit of accepting money from strangers, still less 
from women; and that he did not see that the 
fact of the money being offered two years later 
In a will made the slightest difference. Baines 
was earning £300 a year at this time, and had a 
wife and four children, but he will not admit that 
he did anything at all out of the common. 

The case of Sedley comes up for consideration 
at the next committee meeting. Sedley's rich 
uncle, a cantankerous old man, insulted him 
grossly; there was a quarrel; and the old man 
left, vowing to revenge himself by disinheriting 
his nephew and bequeathing his money to a cats' 
home. He died on his way to his solicitors, and 
Sedley was told of his good fortune in good legal 
English. He replied, "What on earth do you 
take me for? I wouldn't touch a penny. Give it 
to the cats' home or any blessed thing you like." 
Sedley, of course, will be elected as an ordinary 
member, but as there is a strong feeling on the 
committee that no decent man could have done 
anything else, his election as a life member is 
improbable. 

Though there are one or two other members 



222 Not That It Matters 

like Baines and Sedley, most of them are men 
who have refused professional openings rather 
than actual money. There are, for instance, half 
a dozen journalists and authors. Now a journal- 
ist, before he can be elected, must have a black- 
list of papers for which he will refuse to write. 
A concocted wireless message in the Daily Blank, 
which subsequent events proved to have been in- 
vented deliberately for the purpose of raking in 
ha'pennies, so infuriated Henderson (to take a 
case) that he has pledged himself never to write 
a line for any paper owned by the same pro- 
prietors. Curiously enough he was asked a day 
or two later to contribute a series to a most re- 
spectable magazine published by this firm. He 
refused in a letter which breathed hatred and 
utter contempt in every word. It was Hender- 
son, too, who resigned his position as dramatic 
critic because the proprietor of his paper did 
rather a shady thing in private life. "I know the 
paper isn't mixed up in it at all," he said, "but 
he's my employer and he pays me. Well, I like 
to be loyal to my employers, and if I'm loyal to 
this man I can't go about telling everybody that 
he's a dirty cad. As I particularly want to." 

Then there is the case of Bolus the author. 
He is only an honorary member, for he has not 



Declined with Thanks 223 

as yet had the opportunity of refusing money or 
work. But he has refused to be photographed 
and interviewed, and he has refused to contribute 
to symposia in the monthly magazines. He has 
declined with thanks, moreover, invitations to 
half a dozen houses sent to him by hostesses who 
only knew him by reputation. Myself, I think it 
is time that he was elected a full member; in- 
directly he must have been a financial loser by his 
action, and even if he is not actually assisting to 
topple over the Money God, he is at least striking 
a blow for the cause of independence. However, 
there he is, and with him goes a certain M.P. 
who contributed £20,000 to the party chest, and 
refused scornfully the peerage which was offered 
to him. 

The Bar is represented by P. J. Brewster, who 
was elected for refusing to defend a suspected 
murderer until he had absolutely convinced him- 
self of the man's innocence. It was suggested to 
him by his legal brothers that counsel did not 
pledge themselves to the innocence of their clients, 
but merely put the case for one side in a perfectly 
detached way, according to the best traditions of 
the Bar. Brewster replied that he was also quite 
capable of putting the case for Tariff Reform in 
a perfectly detached way according to the best 



224 Not That It Matters 

traditions of The Morning Post, but as he was a 
Free Trader he thought he would refuse any such 
offer if it were made to him. He added, how- 
ever, that he was not in the present case worry- 
ing about moral points of view; he was simply 
expressing his opinion that the luxury of not hav- 
ing little notes passed to him in court by a prob- 
able murderer, of not sharing a page in an illus- 
trated paper with him, and of not having to shake 
hands with him if he were acquitted, was worth 
paying for. Later on, when as K.C., M.P., he 
refused the position of standing counsel to a paper 
which he was always attacking in the House, he 
became a life member of the club. 

But it would be impossible to mention all the 
members of the D.W.T. by name. I have been 
led on to speaking about the club by the mention 
of that Mr. Smith (or whatever his name was) 
who refused to be made a justice of the peace. 
If Mr. Smith cared to put up as an honorary 
member, I have no doubt that he would be elected ; 
for though it is against the Money God that the 
chief battle is waged, yet the spirit of refusal is 
the same. "Blessed are they who know how to 
refuse,'' runs the club's motto, *'for they will have 
a chance to be clean." 



On Going Into a House. 

IT Is nineteen years since I lived in a house; 
nineteen years since I went upstairs to bed 
and came downstairs to breakfast. Of course I 
have done these things In other people's houses 
from time to time, but what we do in other peo- 
ple's houses does not count. We are holiday- 
making then. We play cricket and golf and 
croquet, and run up and down stairs, and amuse 
ourselves in a hundred different ways, but all this 
is no fixed part of our life. Now, however, for 
the first time for nineteen years, I am actually 
living in a house. I have (imagine my excite- 
ment) a staircase of my own. 

Flats may be convenient (I thought so myself 
when I lived In one some days ago) , but they 
have their disadvantages. One of the disadvan- 
tages Is that you are never in complete possession 
of the flat. You may think that the drawing- 
room floor (to take a case) is your very own, but 
it isn't; you share It with a man below who uses 
it as a ceiling. If you want to dance a step-dance, 
you have to consider his plaster. I was always 

225 



226 Not That It Matters 

ready enough to accommodate myself in this mat- 
ter to his prejudices, but I could not put up with 
his old-fashioned ideas about bathroom ceilings. 
It is very cramping to one's style in the bath to 
reflect that the slightest splash may call attention 
to itself on the ceiling of the gentleman below. 
This is to share a bathroom with a stranger — an 
intolerable position for a proud man. To-day I 
have a bathroom of my own for the first time in 
my life. 

I can see already that living in a house is going 
to be extraordinarily healthy both for mind and 
body. At present I go upstairs to my bedroom 
(and downstairs again) about once in every half- 
hour; not simply from pride of ownership, to 
make sure that the bedroom is still there, and 
that the staircase is continuing to perform its func- 
tions, but in order to fetch something, a letter or a 
key, which as likely as not I have forgotten about 
again as soon as I have climbed to the top of the 
house. No such exercise as this was possible in a 
flat, and even after two or three days I feel the 
better for it. But obviously I cannot go on like 
this, if I am to have leisure for anything else. 
With practice I shall so train my mind that, when 
I leave my bedroom in the morning, I leave it 
with everything that I can possibly require until 



On Going Into a House 227 

nightfall. This, I imagine, will not happen for 
some years yet; meanwhile physical training has 
precedence. 

Getting up to breakfast means something dif- 
ferent now; It means coming down to breakfast. 
To come down to breakfast brings one immedi- 
ately in contact with the morning. The world 
flows past the window, that small and (as it 
seems to me) particularly select portion of the 
world which finds Itself in our quiet street; I can 
see it as I drink my tea. When I lived in a flat 
(days and days ago) anything might have hap- 
pened to London, and I should never have known 
it until the afternoon. Everybody else could have 
perished in the night, and I should settle down 
as complacently as ever to my essay on making 
the world safe for democracy. Not so now. As 
soon as I have reached the bottom of my delight- 
ful staircase I am one with the outside world. 

Also one with the weather, which Is rather con- 
venient. On the third floor it is almost impossi- 
ble to know what sort of weather they are having 
in London. A day which looks cold from a third- 
floor window may be very sultry down below, but 
by that time one is committed to an overcoat. 
How much better to live in a house, and to step 
from one's front door and inhale a sample of 



228 Not That It Matters 

whatever day the gods have sent. Then one can 
step back again and dress accordingly. 

But the best of a house is that it has an out- 
side personality as well as an inside one. No- 
body, not even himself, could admire a man's flat 
from the street; nobody could look up and say, 
**What very delightful people must live behind 
those third-floor windows." Here it is different. 
Any of you may find himself some day in our 
quiet street, and stop a moment to look at our 
house; at the blue door with its jolly knocker, at 
the little trees in their blue tubs standing within 
a ring of blue posts linked by chains, at the bright- 
coloured curtains. You may not like it, but we 
shall be watching you from one of the windows, 
and telling each other that you do. In any case, 
we have the pleasure of looking at it ourselves, 
andr feeling that we are contributing something to 
London, whether for better or for worse. We 
are part of a street now, and can take pride in 
that street. Before, we were only part of a big 
unmanageable building. 

It is a solemn thought that I have got thi^ 
house for (apparently) eighty-seven years. Ond 
never knows, and it may be that by the end of 
that time I shall be meditating an article on the 
advantages of living in a flat. A flat, I shall say, 
is so convenient. 



The Ideal Author. 

SAMUEL BUTLER made a habit (and urged 
it upon every young writer) of carrying a 
notebook about with him. The most profitable 
ideas, he felt, do not come from much seeking, 
but rise unbidden in the mind, and if they are not 
put down at once on paper, they may be lost for 
ever. But with a notebook in the pocket you are 
safe; no thought is too fleeting to escape you. 
Thus, if an inspiration for a five-thousand word 
story comes suddenly to you during the dessert, 
you murmur an apology to your neighbour, whip 
out your pocket-book, and jot down a few rough 
notes. "Hero choked peach-stone eve marriage 
Lady Honoria. Pchtree planted by jltd frst love. 
Ironyofthings. Tragic." Next morning you ex- 
tract your notebook from its white waistcoat, and 
prepare to develop your theme (if legible) a little 
more fully. Possibly it does not seem so brilliant 
in the cold light of morning as it did after that 
fourth glass of Bollinger. If this be so, you can 
then make another note — say, for a short article 

229 



230 Not That It Matters 

on ^'Disillusionment." One way or another a 
notebook and a pencil will keep you well supplied 
with material. 

If I do not follow Butler's advice myself, it is 
not because I get no brilliant inspirations away 
from my inkpot, nor because, having had the in- 
spirations, I am capable of retaining them until 
I get back to my inkpot again, but simply because 
I should never have the notebook and the pencil 
in the right pockets. But though I do not imitate 
him, I can admire his wisdom, even while making 
fun of it. Yet I am sure it was unwise of him to 
take the public into his confidence. The public 
prefers to think that an author does not require 
these earthly aids to composition. It will never 
quite reconcile itself to the fact that an author is 
following a profession — a profession by means of 
which he pays the rent and settles the weekly bills. 
No doubt the public wants its favourite writers 
to go on living, but not in the sordid way that its 
barrister and banker friends live. It would pre- 
fer to feel that manna dropped on them from 
Heaven, and that the ravens erected them a resi- 
dence; but, having regretfully to reject this the- 
ory, it likes to keep up the pretence that the thou- 
sand pounds that an author received for his last 
story came as something of a surprise to him — 



The Ideal Author 231 

being, in fact, really more of a coincidence than a 
reward. 

The truth is that a layman will never take an 
author quite seriously. He regards authorship, 
not as a profession, but as something between an 
inspiration and a hobby. In as far as it is an 
inspiration, it is a gift from Heaven, and ought, 
therefore, to be shared with the rest of the world; 
in as far as it is a hobby, it is something which 
should be done not too expertly, but in a casual, 
amateur, haphazard fashion. For this reason a 
layman will never hesitate to ask of an author a 
free contribution for some local publication, on 
such slender grounds as that he and the author 
were educated at the same school or had both met 
Robinson. But the same man would be horrified 
at the idea of asking a Harley Street surgeon 
(perhaps even more closely connected with him) 
to remove his adenoids for nothing. To ask for 
this (he would feel) would be almost as bad as to 
ask a gift of ten guineas (or whatever the fee is), 
whereas to ask a writer for an article is like ask- 
ing a friend to decant your port for you — a deli- 
cate compliment to his particular talent. But in 
truth the matter is otherwise ; and it is the author 
who has the better right to resent such a request. 
For the supply of available adenoids is limited, 



232 Not That It Matters 

and if the surgeon hesitates to occupy himself in 
removing one pair for nothing, it does not follow 
that in the time thus saved he can be certain of 
getting employment upon a ten-guinea pair. But 
when a Harley Street author has written an ar- 
ticle, there are a dozen papers which will give 
him his own price for it, and if he sends it to his 
importunate schoolfellow for nothing, he is liter- 
ally giving up, not only ten or twenty or a hun- 
dred guineas, but a publicity for his work which 
he may prize even more highly. Moreover, he 
has lost what can never be replaced — an idea; 
whereas the surgeon would have lost nothing. 

Since, then, the author is not to be regarded as 
a professional, he must by no means adopt the 
professional notebook. He Is to write by inspira- 
tion; which comes as regularly to him (it Is to be 
presumed) as indigestion to a lesser-favoured 
mortal. He must know things by Intuition; not 
by experience or as the result of reading. This, 
at least. Is what one gathers from hearing some 
people talk about our novelists. The hero of 
Smith's new book goes to the Royal College of 
Science, and the public says scornfully: *'0f 
course, he would. Because Smith went to the 
Royal College himself, all his heroes have to go 
there. This Isn't art, this is photography." In 



The Ideal Author 233 

his next novel Smith sends his hero to Cambridge, 
and the public says indignantly, "What the deuce 
does Smith know about Cambridge? Trying to 
pretend he is a 'Varsity man, when everybody 
knows that he went to the Royal College of 
Science ! I suppose he's been mugging it up in a 
book." Perhaps Brown's young couple honey- 
moons in Switzerland. "So did Brown," sneer 
his acquaintances. Or they go to Central Africa. 
"How ridiculous," say his friends this time. 
"Why, he actually writes as though he'd been 
there ! I suppose he's just spent a week-end with 
Sir Harry Johnston." Meredith has been blamed 
lately for being so secretive about his personal 
affairs, but he knew what he was doing. Happy 
is the writer who has no personal affairs; at any 
rate, he will avoid this sort of criticism. 

Indeed, Isaiah was the ideal author. He in- 
truded no private affairs upon the public. He 
took no money for his prophecies, and yet man- 
aged to live on it. He responded readily, I im- 
agine, to any request for "something prophetic, 
you know," from acquaintances or even strangers. 
Above all, he kept to one style, and did not worry 
the public, when once it had got used to him, by 
tentative gropings after a new method. And 
Isaiah, we may be sure, did not carry a notebook. 



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